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Deviled Lobster

Deviled Lobster is a lobster dish with lemon, paprika, celery, pickles, salt, white sauce, buttered crumbs, garnished with parsley or watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster very fine and season with lemon juice, paprika, chopped celery, pickles, and salt.

  2. Mix the lobster with white sauce, using half as much sauce as lobster.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the lobster shells with the mixture.

  2. Place the filled shells meat side up in a pan.

  3. Cover the tops with buttered crumbs.

  4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Place two tails together lengthwise, crumb side up.

  2. Garnish with claws and parsley or watercress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty filling and the flavor at the center of the dish.
White sauce
Binds the chopped lobster into a moist, spreadable filling.
Buttered crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping as the dish bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster and sauce.
Chopped celery
Adds a crisp, fresh crunch to the soft filling.

The step that matters

Chop the lobster very fine. Fine chopping gives the filling an even, spreadable texture and lets the lobster mix evenly with the white sauce instead of forming chunks that stay dry or stringy.

“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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