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Scalloped Lobster

A baked lobster dish with a buttery sauce, egg yolk, and breadcrumb coating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion until light brown.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute, then gradually add the milk while stirring.

  3. Season with salt, black pepper, cayenne, sugar, nutmeg, and parsley; boil until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Add the lobster meat and bring to a boil again.

  2. Remove from heat and quickly mix in the egg yolk.

  3. Fill scallop shells with the mixture, then coat with egg and breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the onion base and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the lobster together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
Lobster meat
Provides the main flavour and the body of the filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set lightly when heated.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens and can scramble if it meets very hot sauce. Mixing it in quickly off the heat keeps the filling smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, sugar, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, sugar, nutmeg, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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