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Scalloped Lobster

A baked lobster dish topped with bread crumbs and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Scalloped Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster and remove the meat, cutting it into small pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep baking dish, layer the lobster meat and bread crumbs, seasoning with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Finish with a layer of bread crumbs on top.

  2. Pour the milk or cream over the entire dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 dish, giving it its protein and flavor.
Milk or cream
Provides moisture and richness that soak into the crumbs and keep the dish tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add structure, helping the layers hold together while baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dairy and seafood flavors.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, milk, bread):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, milk, bread. 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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