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Lobster, Creamed

A lobster dish simmered with water, cream, and seasonings, served over mashed potatoes or rice and garnished with shrimp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster, Creamed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the shell and legs of the lobster in 1 pint of water until reduced by half.

  2. Add the scraggy part of the lobster to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in ½ cup of cream, diced firm lobster flesh, seasoning, and enough white roux to thicken the mixture.

  4. Remove from heat and add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, salt, cayenne, anchovy essence, and some coral.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture in the center of a hot dish surrounded by a border of mashed potatoes or rice.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining coral over the border and garnish with shrimps or prawns.

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. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + shrimptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + shrimptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the firm flesh that gives the dish its body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
White roux (in the method)
Thickens the mixture so it holds together rather than running thin.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savoury, salty depth that sharpens the flavour of the lobster.
Coral
Contributes rich, concentrated lobster flavour and a bright colour.

The step that matters

Adding the roux and cream. Once the roux is stirred in, the sauce must be kept at a gentle heat. Starch thickens as it heats, so boiling hard after adding it can cause it to scorch on the pan or turn gluey, and cream can split if it is overheated.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, cream, pepper, anchovy, shrimp):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, cream, pepper, anchovy, shrimp. 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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