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Deviled Lobster

Deviled Lobster is a lobster dish with seasoned lobster meat, cream sauce, and a breadcrumb topping baked in the shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, season the lobster meat with salt, pepper, mustard, cayenne, onion juice, parsley, and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Mix the seasoned lobster with the cream sauce.

  3. Place the mixture into the lobster shell.

Top and bake

  1. Combine the cracker crumbs with melted butter and sprinkle over the lobster.

  2. Bake for about 15 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 protein and the substance of the filling.
Cream sauce
Binds the lobster into a moist, spoonable filling.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Melted butter
Fats the crumbs so they brown evenly and taste rich.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that seasons the lobster.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the crumb topping over the lobster. Butter must coat the crumbs evenly so they brown uniformly; dry or unevenly buttered crumbs stay pale or burn in patches under the oven heat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, pepper, mustard, onion, sauce, cream):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, mustard, onion, sauce, cream. 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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