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To Stew Lobsters

A lobster stew made with gravy, wine, vinegar, anchovy, sauces, and spices, garnished with lemon and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Stew Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Extract all the meat from the lobster's head, body, tail, and claws, and break it into small portions.

  2. Combine the lobster meat with the gravy in a pan.

Make the stew

  1. Thicken the mixture with butter and flour or cream.

  2. Add white wine, vinegar, anchovy, Cornish sauce, soy sauce, and lemon juice.

  3. Season with cayenne, black pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  4. Warm gently over low heat until it begins to simmer.

Serve

  1. Serve in a silver dish, garnished with sliced lemon and bread snippets.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat and its sweet, delicate flavour to the stew.
Fish or meat gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the other flavours.
Butter and flour
Together they thicken the stew, giving it body and a smooth texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the liquid base.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that brightens the rich gravy and balances the richness.
Anchovy
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour that enriches the stew without tasting distinctly fishy.

The step that matters

Warm gently over low heat until it begins to simmer. Lobster meat is delicate and turns tough and rubbery if overheated. Gentle heat also keeps the flour-thickened liquid smooth, since a hard boil can make it grainy or cause it to separate.

“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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