Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Au Gratin'

A baked lobster dish topped with breadcrumbs and butter, flavored with parsley, nutmeg, cayenne, lemon, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Au Gratin'

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Split the lobster in half without breaking the shell.

  2. Carefully remove and mince the flesh.

  3. Season the minced lobster with parsley, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the flour with the milk and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in the seasoned lobster mixture and the strained lemon juice, then remove from heat to cool.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolk.

  4. Divide the mixture between the two shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover each with bread crumbs and place small pieces of butter on top.

  2. Brown in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Garnish with lemon slices and parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and flavour, and forms the base of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the lobster.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set to a richer, custard-like texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when browned in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that encourages browning and richness on the surface.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can scramble if the mixture is too hot. Letting the sauce cool slightly before adding it keeps the filling smooth and creamy.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipes