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Stewed Lobster

A lobster stew made with stock, spices, flour, butter, and finished with vinegar or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the lobster meat into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, white stock, salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Dredge in the flour and add the butter.

  4. Stew for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

  5. When done, add vinegar or white wine.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main protein and sweet flavour of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce as it stews.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the stew.
White stock
Forms the cooking liquid that carries the flavour of the dish.
Vinegar or white wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy stew.

The step that matters

Dredge in the flour and add the butter. Flour needs to be well dispersed before or while it heats in the liquid, otherwise it clumps instead of thickening the stew evenly. Adding it with the butter and stirring frequently during stewing helps it hydrate smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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