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Lobster a LA Wilcox

A lobster cooked in butter, seasoned with sea salt and lemon juice, served with saltines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Wilcox

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobster

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the lobster and cover.

  3. Cook for ten minutes.

  4. Add seasoning and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve with saltines.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Lobster + lemontop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the lobster.
Lobster
The main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and sweet lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Cook for ten minutes. Lobster proteins tighten and turn rubbery when overcooked, so the covered cooking time should be watched closely to keep the meat tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lobster):

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lobster. 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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