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Lobster a LA Brochette

A lobster and mushroom skewer served on bacon‑topped toast with butter, lemon, and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Brochette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Sprinkle the lobster pieces with salt, cayenne, and mace.

Skewer and broil

  1. String the lobster and mushrooms onto slender skewers, alternating with 4 pieces of lobster and 3 mushrooms per skewer.

  2. Broil the skewers over clear coals, turning often.

  3. Broil the bacon until crisp.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the toast into strips over 1 inch wide.

  2. Place a slice of bacon on each toast strip, then top with a skewer of lobster and mushrooms.

  3. Spread the skewers with a sauce made from butter, lemon juice, and minced parsley.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main sweet, tender seafood body of the skewers.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and juiciness that keep the skewers from drying over the coals.
Bacon
Renders fat that flavours the lobster and mushrooms while crisping on the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and seafood.

The step that matters

Broil the skewers over clear coals, turning often. Lobster is lean and cooks quickly, so frequent turning spreads heat evenly and prevents the outside from drying or toughening before the centre is just cooked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, mushroom, pepper, bread, butter, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, mushroom, pepper, bread, butter, lemon. 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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