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Baked Lobster

A lobster stuffed with a mixture of egg yolks, sweet oil, mustard, cayenne, and salt, topped with butter and cracker crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the lobster and remove the meat from the shell.

  2. Chop the lobster meat finely.

  3. Mash the hard-boiled egg yolks and mix with the lobster, sweet oil, mustard, cayenne, and salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Wash the lobster shell and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Dot with a small piece of butter and sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Provides the main flavour and the tender, flaky body of the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the mixture to add richness and a creamy, binding texture.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and smooth during baking.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Mashing the egg yolks into the lobster. The yolks must be mashed fully smooth so they blend evenly with the oil and mustard. Lumps leave dry pockets and an uneven, crumbly texture instead of a creamy filling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

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