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Lobster En Coquille

A lobster dish baked in shells with a creamy sauce and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster En Coquille

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and stir until boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks, salt, and red pepper.

Assemble and brown

  1. Carefully combine the lobster with the sauce.

  2. Spoon the mixture into shells, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and brown in the oven.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Lobster
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the lobster.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden browned topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so adding them to a boiling sauce can scramble them. Removing the pan from heat first lets them thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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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