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Lobster Bourdelaise

A lobster stew with onions, mushrooms, and a sauce of olive oil, flour, stock, lemon, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Bourdelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Plunge the lobster into boiling water and cook for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the lobster meat from the shell and cut it into small bits.

  3. Chop the mushrooms and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan.

  2. Add the onions and fry until light brown.

  3. Stir in the flour and mix well.

  4. Slowly add the soup stock while stirring continuously.

  5. Let the sauce cool for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the lemon juice and white wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Return to heat and add the lobster meat and mushrooms.

  2. Cook until thoroughly hot, but do not boil.

  3. Serve on a hot dish garnished with 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  4. Olive + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Coral lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate meat for the stew.
Olive oil
Carries the onions' flavour and helps them brown in the pan.
Onions
Soften and brown to build a sweet, savoury base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the soup stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until thoroughly hot, but do not boil. Lobster meat turns tough and rubbery when overheated, and a sauce that boils can break or separate. Gentle heat keeps the lobster tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, olive, flour, lemon, white wine, mushroom, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, olive, flour, lemon, white wine, mushroom, parsley. 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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