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Devilled Lobster

A lobster dish coated with butter, curry powder, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and sea salt, then sautéed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devilled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Coat each piece of lobster meat with a mixture of 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1 teaspoon prepared mustard, ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, and ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt.

  2. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium heat.

Cook

  1. Sauté the coated lobster pieces in the melted butter until heated through.

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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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, cooked gently until just heated through.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavours the lobster coating.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the butter.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and a touch of acidity to the coating.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness and moisture while sautéing.

The step that matters

Sautéing the coated lobster. Lobster meat is delicate and turns tough and rubbery when overcooked. Cooking only until heated through keeps it tender, and the butter helps spread heat evenly while adding moisture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, butter, sauce. 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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