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Lobster or Spiny Lobster, American Style

A lobster cooked in court bouillon, sweet oil, onions, shallots, thyme, bay leaf, white wine, court bouillon stock, tomato sauce, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lobster or Spiny Lobster, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobsters

  1. Cook the lobsters in a court bouillon as described in crawfish au court bouillon.

  2. Drain the lobsters.

  3. Split the lobsters lengthwise.

Braise

  1. In a sauté pan, cover the lobsters with sweet oil, minced onions, shallots, thyme, and bay leaf. Heat for a few minutes. Season.

  2. Add 1 cup of white wine and 1 cup of court bouillon stock.

  3. Cover and boil over high heat for 12 minutes.

  4. Keep warm without boiling for 10 minutes.

Make the glaze

  1. Drain and strain the liquid.

  2. Reduce the liquid to a half-glaze.

  3. Thicken the glaze with tomato sauce.

  4. Mix in a few spoonfuls of Madeira wine.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main flesh that is cooked and served split in halves.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and body to the braising liquid as it cooks down.
Shallots
Contribute a mild, delicate aromatic flavour to the braising liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity to the braising liquid, which helps build a balanced flavour in the glaze.
Tomato sauce
Thickens the reduced glaze and adds body and savoury flavour.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and a rich, nutty aroma to the finished glaze.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid to a half-glaze. Reducing concentrates flavour and sugars, but over-reducing can make the glaze too salty or sticky. Stop when it coats a spoon, since it will thicken further once tomato sauce is added.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, onion, shallot, thyme, white wine, sauce, madeira wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, onion, shallot, thyme, white wine, sauce, madeira wine. 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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