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Stewed Lobster

A dish of lobster meat simmered with stock, mace, cayenne, salt, flour, butter, and finished with vinegar or white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Remove all the meat and soft parts from the lobster body and cut into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, white stock, mace, Cayenne, and salt.

  3. Dredge the lobster pieces in flour.

Stew

  1. Add bits of butter.

  2. Stew for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. When done, stir in vinegar or white wine.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 meat and soft parts
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavour.
Flour
Coats the lobster pieces, helping thicken the stewing liquid and lightly bind the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stew.
White stock
Supplies the liquid in which the lobster stews.
Vinegar or white wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stew at the end.

The step that matters

Dredge the lobster pieces in flour. Flour coating must be even and not clumped. Flour starch thickens the liquid as it heats, and uneven coating leaves floury lumps or thin patches in the sauce.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, flour, butter, vinegar. 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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