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Deviled Lobster

A chilled lobster salad with a mustard and egg yolk sauce, seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Chop the lobster meat finely and set aside the green fat and coral.

  2. Boil the vinegar and water, then add the mustard, French mustard, pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Thicken the mixture with the creamed yolks of the hard-boiled eggs beaten with the raw egg yolks until it resembles cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the thickened sauce with the chopped lobster meat and place it in a mold.

  2. Chill and serve as a filling for sandwiches or as a relish.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together692 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty body of the dish.
Raw egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce, giving it a creamy, cohesive texture.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into the sauce to add richness and a smooth, creamy body.
French mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps bind the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and lobster flavours.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with the egg yolks. Raw yolks must be beaten into the hot vinegar mixture gradually and not overheated, or they can scramble. Properly blended yolks emulsify into a smooth, cream-like sauce that coats the lobster evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, vinegar, egg, pepper. 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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