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Lobster Cocktail

A chilled appetizer of boiled lobster pieces served with cocktail sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Lobster Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the lobsters until cooked.

  2. Cut the lobsters into pieces that are ½ inch square.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare the cocktail sauce as per the oyster cocktail recipe.

  2. Substitute lobster pieces for oysters in the cocktail sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve the lobster cocktail very cold in cocktail glasses.

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. Lobster + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat, whose sweet, firm texture forms the body of the cocktail.
Cocktail sauce
Adds acidity and savory heat that cut through the rich, sweet lobster meat.

The step that matters

Boil the lobsters until cooked. Overcooked lobster meat becomes tough and rubbery because high heat squeezes out moisture and tightens its proteins. Stop as soon as the meat turns opaque and firm so it stays tender when chilled.

“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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