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Savory Lobster

A lobster dish cooked with butter, dry mustard, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Savory Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter.

  2. Add the dry mustard, salt, and pepper; stir well.

  3. Incorporate the lobster meat and heat until smoking hot.

  4. Add the lemon juice and cook for 1 more minute.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the seasonings and gives the lobster a rich, savory base.
Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its sweet, delicate flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and lobster flavors.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that deepens the savory flavor.

The step that matters

Add the lobster meat and heat until smoking hot. Lobster is delicate and overcooks quickly, turning firm and rubbery. Heating only until the meat is hot through, then serving at once, keeps it tender.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, meat, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, meat, lemon. 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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