Name: Lobster with Cream
Ingredients: 2 cups lobster, cut fine; 1 pint milk; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ tablespoon flour; ½ teaspoon minced parsley; ½ teaspoon mustard; 8 drops Tabasco sauce; ⅓ cup sherry; 1½ tablespoons butter

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the milk with onion, parsley, and Tabasco sauce.
Add the creamed flour and butter, then stir in the mustard and lobster.
Cook for a few more minutes, then stir in the sherry and salt.
Serve in cases or shells.

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.

Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, milk, flour, mustard, sauce, sherry, butter):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, flour, mustard, sauce, sherry, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.