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Buttered Lobster

A lobster dish baked with white sauce, tomato catsup, salt, pepper, and buttered bread or cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttered Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster into dice.

  2. Add the white sauce, salt, tomato catsup, and pepper; mix well.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

  2. Cover with buttered bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for twenty 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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

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 dish and provides its seafood flavor and tender texture.
White sauce
Binds the lobster pieces together and keeps the filling moist and creamy.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity that season the creamy sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, sauce, pepper, bread. 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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