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Lobster Entree

A lobster entrée served with a butter‑flour sauce, finished with bread crumbs and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Entree

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Mince the lobster, but not too finely, and place it in a shallow dish.

  2. Melt 2 oz of butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix thoroughly.

  4. Gradually add the cold water, stirring until it boils.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the salt, pepper, milk, lemon juice, and cayenne.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the sauce over the lobster, then sprinkle with bread crumbs and dot with remaining butter.

  2. Brown quickly in a 400°F (200°C) 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavor and tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps the topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and cold water into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cold water, stirring until it boils. Adding the cold liquid gradually while stirring keeps flour from clumping, so the sauce becomes smooth. The sauce must reach a boil so the starch fully thickens and loses its raw floury taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour, milk, bread, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, milk, bread, pepper. 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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