Name: Minced Lobster
Ingredients: 2 lb lobster; ½ tsp paprika; 2 tbsp butter; ½ tsp onion juice

Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Minced Lobster

Ingredients

2 lb lobster
½ tsp paprika
2 tbsp butter
½ tsp onion juice

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Remove the meat from the lobster shell and cut it into small pieces.

Cook the lobster

Melt the butter in a skillet, then add the onion juice and paprika.
Add the lobster to the skillet and heat it through.

Toast and serve

Toast halves of Shredded Wheat Biscuit, crackers, or slices of bread.
Place the hot lobster on the toasted bread and 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.

Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Lobster + oniontop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together474 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster: Forms the main filling, supplying the meat that is warmed and served on toast.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavour of the paprika and onion juice through the skillet.