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Devilled Lobster, or Crab

A lobster or crab filling of chopped shellfish, parsley, eggs, butter, and bread crumbs, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Devilled Lobster, or Crab

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.

Prepare

  1. Chop the lobsters and parsley very fine.

  2. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in beaten eggs, butter, and bread crumbs.

  2. Pack the mixture solidly into the lobster shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) and serve in the shells.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the sweet meat that forms the main body of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set when heated, holding it together in the shell.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and adds body, giving the filling structure as crumbs.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture solidly into the shells. Loose packing leaves air gaps that can make the filling sag or set unevenly. Firm packing removes air pockets so the egg proteins set into a stable, sliceable mass when baked.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, egg, bread, pepper. 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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