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Lobster a L'americaine

A lobster dish simmered in olive oil, onion, green pepper, garlic, white wine, tomato sauce, and diced tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Lobster a L'americaine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Split the lobsters and remove all the meat, cutting it into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a pan until very hot, then add the lobster pieces.

Cook the sauce

  1. Add the chopped onion, green pepper, and garlic; cook for 5 minutes, mixing gently.

  2. Season with salt and red pepper, then add the white wine and reduce for 2 minutes.

  3. Stir in the tomato sauce and diced tomato; cook for 10 minutes, gently mixing.

  4. Pour into a hot deep dish or tureen and serve.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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.
Olive oil
Carries heat and flavour, searing the lobster and enriching the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the base of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and concentrates as it reduces.
Tomato sauce
Supplies moisture and body, giving the dish its sauce.
Red tomato
Adds fresh acidity and moisture, softening into the sauce as it cooks.

The step that matters

Heating the olive oil until very hot before adding the lobster. Searing the lobster in very hot oil browns its surface and builds flavour; in cool oil the meat steams, turns rubbery and releases excess liquid into the sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, olive, onion, pepper, garlic, white wine, tomato):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, olive, onion, pepper, garlic, white wine, tomato. 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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