Name: Creamed Lobster
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons flour; ½ cup cream; ½ cup chicken stock; 1 or 2 egg yolks; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 small onion (optional); 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons chopped mushrooms (optional, in place of onion)

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Creamed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.
Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes until softened.
Stir in the flour and chicken stock, cooking for 5 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper, then add the cream.
Once heated, stir in the egg yolks and mix well.
Add the lobster and heat gently over a double boiler until warmed through.

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.

Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,172 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, chicken, egg, pepper, butter, mushroom):

Spinachfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, chicken, egg, pepper, butter, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.