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Lobster Cocktail

A chilled lobster salad with tomato ketchup, sherry wine, lemon juice, Tabasco, chives, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine lobster meat, tomato ketchup, sherry wine, lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, chives, and salt.

  2. Chill the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Serve in cocktail glasses.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor that the sauce surrounds.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity and body to the sauce that coats the lobster.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and a savory depth that balances the sweetness of the ketchup.
Lemon juice
Brightens the sauce with acidity that sharpens the flavor of the lobster.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture thoroughly. Cold temperatures keep the lobster firm and food-safe, and let the flavors of the sauce blend and settle before serving.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, tomato, ketchup, sherry, wine, sauce):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Pineapplefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, tomato, ketchup, sherry, wine, sauce. 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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