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Scolloped Lobster

A baked lobster dish with pepper, salt, Worcestershire sauce or ketchup, vinegar, butter, cream or milk, topped with bread crumbs or crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scolloped 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 lobster, then remove the meat and chop it finely.

  2. Season the lobster meat with pepper, salt, Worcestershire sauce or ketchup.

Make the mixture

  1. Add vinegar, butter, and enough cream or milk to moisten the mixture.

  2. Put the mixture in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and sprinkle bread crumbs or crushed crackers on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 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 protein and the bulk of the dish's texture and flavor.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Bread crumbs or crushed crackers
Form a crisp, browned topping when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Enough cream or milk must be added so the lobster is moist but not soupy. Too little leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much keeps it from setting and browning well in the oven.

“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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