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Lobster Bashaws

Lobster shells filled with lobster mixture, bread crumbs, and clarified butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster Bashaws

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the lobster as in the previous recipe.

  2. Divide the shell into quarters and scrape them thoroughly.

Fill and bake

  1. Sprinkle the inside of the shells with fine dried bread crumbs.

  2. Fill the shells with the lobster mixture and cover thickly with more bread crumbs.

  3. Pour ½ cup of clarified butter over the top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  5. If not browned, hold a red-hot iron shovel over the lobster for 2-3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat in the shells on a hot napkin and garnish with parsley.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Lobster + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together736 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and the substance of the filling.
Fine dried bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust and soak up the melted butter.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that carries heat for browning and gives richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Browning under the hot iron shovel. Browning needs intense, dry, direct heat on the crumb and butter surface. Too little heat leaves the top pale and soft, while holding the shovel too close or too long can scorch the crumbs before the filling is hot.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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