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Lobster Ravioli with Lobster Sauce

Lobster is one of life’s greatest luxuries and it deserves the silky beauty of hand-made pasta.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,050 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep2 hr
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Make the pasta: mix the 300g '00' flour with 3 of the eggs and a pinch of salt until a dough forms. Knead 8 to 10 minutes, wrap and rest 30 minutes.

  2. Make the sauce base: melt half the butter, soften the chopped onion and carrot with the lobster shell for 5 minutes, add the brandy and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and thyme sprigs, simmer 20 minutes, then strain.

  3. Make the filling: heat olive oil and cook the raw king prawns for 2 to 3 minutes until opaque and reaching 145°F (63°C). Cool, then blend with most of the cooked lobster meat, the cream, chopped basil, salt and pepper.

  4. Roll the pasta thinly, place small spoonfuls of filling on one sheet, brush around them with the beaten remaining egg, cover with a second sheet, press out air and cut into ravioli.

  5. Simmer the lobster sauce again, whisk in the remaining butter, add lemon juice and the chopped chervil, and season. Keep warm.

  6. Cook the ravioli in a large pan of boiling salted water for 3 to 4 minutes until they float and are tender. Drain well.

  7. Blanch the baby carrots and samphire in boiling water for 2 minutes, then toss briefly in butter with the halved cherry tomatoes and a little lemon zest.

  8. Serve the ravioli in warm bowls with the sauce spooned over, the vegetables alongside, and the remaining lobster meat warmed through and placed on top.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lobster + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Pepper + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Basil + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,868 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pasta + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pasta + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pasta, flour, egg, lobster, cream, pepper, olive):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pasta, flour, egg, lobster, cream, pepper, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).