Name: Lobster Sandwiches
Ingredients: meat of 1 lobster; 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 tablespoon oil; butter for spreading; slices of bread

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 ↓

Lobster Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the meat of the lobster finely.

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the lobster meat with Tabasco sauce, lemon juice, and oil.

Assemble

Spread butter on slices of bread.
Place the lobster mixture on the buttered bread and assemble the sandwiches.

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.

Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Meat of 1 lobster: Provides the main filling, with a tender, sweet flavour and texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster flavour.
Oil: Adds moisture and fat, keeping the lobster filling soft and spreadable.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the bread brown and taste savoury.

Swap the lemon

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

Coconutfits better
Figfits about as well
Applefits about as well
Lemonthe original

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