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To Jiew Lobsters or Shrimps

A sauce for lobsters or shrimps made with water, mace, peppercorns, flour, butter, and white wine or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Jiew Lobsters or Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobsters or shrimps into large pieces.

  2. Boil the shells in 1 pint of water with mace and peppercorns until flavorful.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the mixture and add the lobsters or shrimps.

  2. Thicken with flour and butter, then bring to a boil.

  3. Add white wine or vinegar and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour thicken it smoothly.
White wine or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and butter, then bring to a boil. Flour must be cooked with the butter and liquid to swell its starch and thicken the sauce. Adding flour directly to hot liquid can form lumps, so it should be mixed in smoothly before the sauce reaches a boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, flour, butter, white wine):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, flour, butter, white 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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