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Stewed Lobster

Stewed lobster pieces cooked with butter, salt, pepper, green meat, water, and finished with sherry or port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the lobster pieces in a stew pan.

  2. Pour the water over the lobster.

  3. Add the butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Mix in the green meat of the lobster.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew for about 10 minutes.

  2. Just before serving, add the sherry or port wine.

  3. Let it scald but do not boil.

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. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks gently in the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewing liquid.
Green meat of the lobster
Thickens the stew slightly and intensifies the lobster flavour as it melts into the liquid.
Sherry or port wine
Adds aromatic depth and a touch of sweetness and acidity to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Let it scald but do not boil. Boiling a seafood stew toughens lobster proteins, making the meat rubbery. Holding it just below a boil keeps the lobster tender and the butter and tomalley blended smoothly.

“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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