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Deviled Lobster

A lobster dish filled with seasoned lobster meat, topped with buttered crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster very fine and season with lemon juice, paprika, chopped celery, pickles, and salt.

  2. Mix the lobster with white sauce, using half as much sauce as lobster.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the lobster shells with the mixture, meat side up.

  2. Cover the top with buttered crumbs.

  3. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Place two tails together lengthwise, crumbs side up.

  2. Garnish with claws and parsley or watercress.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,360 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lobster + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together251 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + lemontop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the filling and provides the rich seafood flavour.
White sauce
Binds the chopped lobster into a moist, spoonable filling.
Buttered crumbs
Forms a top layer that browns and crisps in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering the filling with buttered crumbs before baking. Buttered crumbs brown and crisp in the oven while the filling heats through. Coating them evenly with butter helps them colour rather than stay pale or dry.

“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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