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Deviled Lobster

Deviled Lobster is a lobster dish seasoned with lemon juice, paprika, celery, pickles, salt, and white sauce, topped with buttered breadcrumbs and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster very fine.

  2. Season the lobster with lemon juice, paprika, chopped celery, pickles, and salt.

  3. Mix the lobster with white sauce, using half as much sauce as lobster meat.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the lobster shells with the mixture, placing them meat side up in a pan.

  2. Cover the tops with buttered breadcrumbs.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place two tails together lengthwise, crumb side up, and garnish with claws and parsley or watercress.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Celery + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sauce + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty body of the filling.
White sauce
Binds the lobster and keeps the filling moist and creamy.
Buttered breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they brown in the oven.
Pickles
Add acidity and a sharp contrast to the rich lobster.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the lobster.

The step that matters

Mixing the white sauce into the lobster. Using too much sauce makes the filling wet and loose, so it will not hold its shape in the shell. Following the half-as-much ratio keeps the filling moist but firm enough to bake well.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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