Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Lobster

A method for boiling a lobster in salted water and serving it with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

To Boil Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the water

  1. Fill a large kettle with enough water to cover the lobster.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt for every quart of water.

  3. Bring the water to a rapid boil.

Cook the lobster

  1. Carefully add the lobster head first to the boiling water.

  2. Boil briskly for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the lobster with tongs and let it drain.

Finish and serve

  1. Wipe off any scum and rub the lobster with butter or sweet oil.

  2. Crack the large claws without shattering them.

  3. Place a napkin on a large serving dish.

  4. Split the lobster body from head to tail with a sharp knife and lay it open on the napkin.

  5. Arrange a large claw at each end and serve with melted butter.

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 + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Is the main protein; its shell and flesh set the cooking time and final texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the lobster meat is lightly flavoured as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the cooked meat, especially as a dipping sauce.

The step that matters

Boil briskly for 30 minutes. The water must return to a rapid boil after the lobster is added so the cooking stays even. Overcooking toughens the meat, so the timing matters as much as the heat.

“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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes