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Lobster Oe Spiny Lobster, American Style

A lobster dish cooked in court bouillon, simmered with wine, butter, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lobster Oe Spiny Lobster, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobsters

  1. Cook the lobsters in a court bouillon as described in crawfish au court bouillon.

  2. Drain and split the lobsters lengthwise.

  3. In a sauté pan, cover the lobsters with sweet oil, minced onions, shallots, thyme, and bay leaf, cut side up.

  4. Heat for a few minutes, season, and add 1 cup of white wine and 1 cup of court bouillon stock.

  5. Cover and boil over high heat for 12 minutes, then keep warm without boiling for 10 minutes.

Make the glaze

  1. Drain and strain the liquid, then reduce it to a half-glaze.

  2. Thicken the glaze with tomato sauce and mix in a few spoonfuls of Madeira wine.

  3. Remove from heat and finish with fresh butter.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
The main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the bouillon and wine.
Onions
Aromatic base that adds sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid as it softens.
Shallots
Mild aromatic base that adds a delicate sweetness to the pan liquid.
Tomato sauce
Adds body and acidity, helping thicken the reduced glaze.
Fresh butter
Stirred in at the end to enrich the glaze with fat and a glossy texture.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and a rich, aromatic note to the finished glaze.

The step that matters

Reducing the strained liquid to a half-glaze. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid through evaporation. Taking it too far can make it sticky and salty, while stopping too early leaves a thin sauce that will not cling to the lobster.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, onion, shallot, thyme, white wine, sauce, madeira wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, onion, shallot, thyme, white wine, sauce, madeira wine. 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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