Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,095 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the fowl
Remove the bones from the fowl without cutting the skin.
Prepare the quenelle of fowl and mix in the pounded lobster spawn.
Insert the colored farce between the skin and the flesh of the breast and fill the inside of the body.
Secure both ends with thread to maintain shape.
Cook
Line an oval stewpan with slices of bacon and place the fowl inside.
Cover the fowl with more bacon and pour over the poele sauce.
Set the stewpan on the fire and let it boil slowly for 1.5 hours.
Finish and serve
Drain and wipe off all grease, then glaze the fowl lightly.
Serve with sauce allemande.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Lobster + saucetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + saucetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together15,317 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lobster + buttertop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Veal + buttertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Veal + lobstertop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together225 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter and sauce share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,317 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Fowl
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat becomes tender during the slow cooking.
- Lobster spawn
- Gives the farce its colour and a rich, delicate seafood flavour.
- Butter
- Softens the pounded lobster spawn and adds richness to the farce.
- Fat bacon
- Lines and covers the fowl, adding fat and savoury flavour as it cooks.
The step that matters
Wipe off all grease before glazing. Excess fat left on the surface would make the glaze slide off and cloud its appearance. Draining and wiping the fowl lets the glaze set in a thin, even layer.
“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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