Name: A Fricassee of Lobsters
Ingredients: lobster meat from claws and tail; lobster meat from the body; good meat stock (enough to cover the lobster); 1 blade of mace; lemon peel; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 eggs; sliced lemon (for garnish)

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Fricassee of Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Boil the lobsters, then remove the meat from the claws and tail, cutting it into square or long pieces.
Extract the meat from the body, ensuring to take all the red if using a coral lobster.

Make the sauce

In a pot, combine the meat stock, mace, and lemon peel; bring to a boil.
Thicken the stock with butter and flour mixed together.
Once boiling, add the lobster meat and stir in the eggs.
Ensure the sauce is thick but not too much; it should coat the lobster.

Garnish and serve

Garnish the dish with the ends of the claws and sliced lemon.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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: Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, delicate flavour.
Butter and flour: Together they form a roux that thickens the stock into a sauce that coats the lobster.
Eggs: Stirred into the hot sauce to enrich it and add body as it thickens.
Meat stock: Serves as the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with the eggs. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is boiling hard. Keep the heat moderate after adding the eggs so the sauce becomes smooth and coats the lobster rather than curdling.

Swap the mace

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

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Nutmegfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, lemon, butter, flour, egg. 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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Lobster Sauce174 recipes

Lobster Croquettes99 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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A Fricassee of Lobsters