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Deviled Lobster

Deviled lobster is a baked lobster dish with a creamy sauce of butter, flour, milk, stock, egg, Worcestershire, onion, marjoram, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk and stock, stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg.

  5. Add Worcestershire sauce, onion, marjoram, salt, and pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Fold in the chopped lobster until well mixed.

  2. Spoon the mixture into lobster shells and top with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until browned.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + marjoramtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Lobster
Forms the main filling and provides the dish's rich seafood flavour.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and flavour to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth, stable sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the sauce and adds mild sweetness.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps it set firmly once baked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and liquid, stirred as the milk and stock are added, so the sauce thickens evenly without lumps. Stirring also prevents scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour, milk, egg, sauce, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, milk, egg, sauce, onion. 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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