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Stewed Lobster on Toast

A dish of stewed lobster served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the lobster finely and place it in a saucepan.

  2. Add the cream, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stir the mixture and heat it without letting it fry.

  4. Prepare thick slices of buttered toast.

Serve

  1. Pour the lobster mixture over the toast and serve hot.

  2. If using, sprinkle the grated lobster coral on top 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 meat and flavour of the dish.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, turning the lobster into a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture without letting it fry. Gentle heat keeps the cream from boiling or splitting and keeps the lobster tender and rubbery-free. Frying or hard boiling can cause the cream and butter to separate and the lobster to toughen.

“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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