Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Potted Lobsters
Ingredients
Directions
Place lobsters in a tub with weak saltwater and brush them clean.
Wash lobsters in pure water and boil them in salted water with saltpetre.
Once cooked, lay lobsters on a sieve to cool.
The next day, cut open the shells and crack the claws to remove the meat.
Pick over the meat to remove skins and specks, and separate the coral.
Cut the meat into dice and pound it finely in a mortar, adding clarified butter to achieve a smooth consistency.
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.
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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