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Stewed Lobster

A lobster stew made with lobster meat, bread crumbs, butter, milk, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the meat, discarding the fat and red parts, and chop it very fine.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, bread crumbs, butter, salt, milk, and Cayenne pepper.

  2. Warm the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until it just boils.

Serve

  1. Serve in a covered dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main protein, which becomes the body of the stewed dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, thickening the mixture and giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stew.
Milk
Supplies moisture and, with the crumbs, forms a creamy, thickened base.
Egg-sized lump of butter
Adds fat for richness and smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stirring until it just boils. Milk proteins can scorch on the bottom of the pan over medium heat, and boiling too hard can cause the milk to curdle or separate. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the mixture smooth.

“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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