Name: Lobster Saute
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; 1 pint fresh lobster meat or 1 can lobster; coarse sea salt to taste; a dash of cayenne pepper; juice of ½ lemon

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 ↓

Lobster Saute

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
1 pint fresh lobster meat or 1 can lobster
coarse sea salt to taste
a dash of cayenne pepper
juice of ½ lemon

Directions

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
Add the lobster meat and cut into small pieces.
Stir briskly.
Season with salt, cayenne, and lemon juice.
Cook until the lobster is very hot.
Serve.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,247 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the lobster brown lightly.
Lobster meat: Provides the main protein; gentle heat firms it while keeping it tender.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and lobster flavor.

“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.