Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Lobster Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster butter
Pound the spawn or coral of the lobster in a mortar with a little salt and cayenne pepper.
Add twice the weight of the mixture in fresh butter and rub it through a sieve.
Store the mixture in a cool place until needed.
If spawn is unavailable, pound the finely crushed shell of the lobster with ¼ cup of fresh butter.
Cook and strain
Place the mixture in a jar and set it in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil gently for an hour, then press the butter through a cloth into a basin of cold water.
Once it has stiffened, lift it from the water, drain it, and pass it through a sieve.
Mix with an equal quantity of fresh butter.
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.
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Lobster spawn or coral
- Gives the butter its rich lobster flavour and characteristic colour.
- Fresh butter
- Carries the lobster flavour and forms the rich, spreadable body of the butter.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds a gentle heat that sharpens and rounds the lobster flavour.
The step that matters
Gentle boiling in the jar. Boiling gently in a water bath lets the flavour infuse slowly without the butter splitting or scorching. Vigorous boiling would separate the milk solids and fat, spoiling the smooth texture before the butter is strained.
“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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