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Stewed Lobster

A lobster stew made with butter, flour, stock, spices, and lobster meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the stock while stirring continuously.

  4. Season with mace, salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the lobster meat into small pieces and add to the gravy.

  2. Simmer for 5 minutes 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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melted with the flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked with the butter.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy that the lobster simmers in.
Lobster meat
Provides the main protein, becoming tender as it gently simmers in the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the stock into the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring continuously keeps the flour dispersed, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, even gravy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mace, lobster, meat. 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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