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Scolloped Lobster

A lobster dish baked with white sauce, butter, anchovy paste, spices, egg yolks, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scolloped Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster meat and place it in a saucepan.

  2. Add the white sauce, butter, anchovy paste, salt, pepper, nutmeg, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  3. Stir over low heat for a few minutes.

  4. Mix in the egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill shells with the mixture and cover with fried bread crumbs.

  2. Brown under a broiler or salamander.

  3. Serve on a folded napkin, garnished with crispy parsley.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the filling and supplies the dish's rich seafood flavour.
White sauce
Binds the lobster into a creamy, moist filling that holds together in the shells.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help thicken it as it is gently heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the lobster flavour.
Fried bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns under the broiler.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the hot filling. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.

“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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