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Stuffed Lobster

A lobster shell filled with a creamy sauce of lobster, cream, stock, butter, flour, egg yolks, lemon, spices, and optional pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Scald the stock and cream with the bay leaf, then remove the bay leaf.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Gradually add the cream and stock mixture, stirring continuously.

  4. Add salt, cayenne, nutmeg, beaten egg yolks, and lemon juice to the sauce.

  5. When the sauce thickens, add the lobster and pecans, then fill the lobster shell.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with buttered bread crumbs and brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Serve in a nest of watercress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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
Forms the main filling, providing the substance of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the sauce become smooth and velvety.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the roux base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and liquid.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken as it gently heats.
Pecan kernels
Add crunch and nutty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce after adding egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, and if the sauce boils after they are added they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily until it just thickens.

“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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