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Baked Lobster

A lobster baked with a milk and onion sauce, finished with butter and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Chop the lobsters finely.

Make the dressing

  1. Scald the milk with the chopped onion.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk to make a paste, then add it to the milk.

  3. Stir in salt, pepper, and butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the lobster in a serving dish and pour the dressing over it.

  2. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Lobsters
Provide the main protein and body of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the dressing, giving a creamy, moist texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth dressing that holds the lobster together.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps set the dressing when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing.
Cracker crumbs
Creates a crisp, golden browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Scalding the milk with the onion. Scalding heats the milk without boiling it, so it infuses with onion flavour and blends smoothly with the flour paste. Overheating can scorch the milk or cause a skin to form, while under-heating leaves the onion flavour weak.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, egg, flour, butter, 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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