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Stewed Lobster

A lobster stew made with butter, flour, water or cream, and seasonings, finished with optional vinegar, lemon juice, or egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Choose a heavy live lobster.

  2. Boil a large pot of water with a handful of salt.

  3. Plunge the lobster head first into the boiling water and boil for 20 minutes until the shell turns red.

  4. Remove the lobster and break off the claws and tail.

  5. Use a can-opener to break the shell and remove the flesh, cutting it into half-inch pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and flour over heat until bubbling.

  2. Gradually stir in the boiling water (or milk and water) until smooth and boil for 2 minutes.

  3. Season the sauce with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster flesh, coral, and fat, and heat until scalding hot.

  2. Stir in vinegar, lemon juice, or egg yolk just before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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; boiling firms the flesh and sets the shell colour.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce when used in place of some water.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling water gradually. Adding liquid slowly to the hot butter and flour mixture, while stirring, keeps lumps from forming. Boiling the sauce for 2 minutes then cooks out the raw flour taste and thickens it fully.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, vinegar, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, vinegar, egg. 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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