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Julia's Devilled Lobster

A lobster dish with cream, milk, flour, mustard, and spices, topped with breadcrumbs and butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Julia's Devilled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters for about 10 minutes, then let them cool.

  2. Remove the meat from the shells and chop it very finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a double boiler, heat the cream and milk until hot.

  2. Stir in the flour while cooking to thicken the mixture.

  3. Add the chopped lobster, dry mustard, red pepper, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  4. Cook everything together for 20 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and drizzle with melted butter.

  2. Place in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat that forms the body of the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Milk
Thins the sauce and adds moisture and a soft, mild richness.
Flour
Thickens the cream and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the lobster together.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the cream.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thicken the cream and milk with flour while heating. Flour must be stirred in while the liquid is heating so its starch swells and thickens evenly. Adding it to cold or boiling liquid without stirring can cause lumps, leaving the filling uneven in texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, cream, milk, flour, pepper, 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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