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Creamed Lobster

A creamy lobster dish made with milk, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Creamed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to create a roux.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk to the roux, stirring until thickened.

Add the lobster and serve

  1. Mince the lobster meat with a sharp knife.

  2. Stir the minced lobster into the thickened milk and heat through.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the raw cream.

  4. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and sweet flavour that the dish is built around.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux, adding richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter as a roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the roux sets.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the finished sauce a softer, silkier mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce and balances the lobster's sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the roux. Pouring the hot milk in gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, meat, lobster, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, meat, lobster, butter, flour, pepper. 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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