Name: Lobster Butter
Ingredients: spawn of lobster; fresh butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

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

spawn of lobster
fresh butter
pepper
coarse sea salt

Directions

Pound the lobster spawn and pass it through a silk sieve.
Mix the sieved spawn with a little fresh butter and blend well.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Heat the mixture in a bain marie for one hour.
Strain through a napkin over a pan of water.
Raise the butter from the surface of the water, place it in a napkin, and pass it through the sieve.
Mix the strained butter with the remaining butter.

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.

Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,247 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).