Name: Broiled Live Lobsters
Ingredients: 1 live lobster; Lemon; Butter; Parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Live Lobsters

Ingredients

1 live lobster
Lemon
Butter
Parsley

Directions

Prepare

Split the lobster and remove any foreign substances.
Grease a piece of tissue paper and lay it on the flesh side of the lobster.

Broil and serve

Broil the lobster over clear coals, starting with the flesh side down.
Serve with lemon and butter, garnished with parsley and lemon.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together890 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

Lobster: Forms the main protein of the dish, cooking to a firm, opaque texture under heat.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the meat when served with it.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the butter and lobster.

“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.