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Lobster Scolloped

A baked lobster dish with cayenne, tarragon, chili vinegar, mace, bread crumbs, and a floured butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lobster Scolloped

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a stew‑pan, combine lobster meat, Cayenne pepper, tarragon, chili vinegar, salt, bruised mace, and bread crumbs.

  3. Place the mixture in scallop shells.

Make the sauce

  1. Break up the lobster shell and claws and add them to a small amount of water.

  2. Stew until reduced by half.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Thicken the liquid with floured butter in a stew‑pan.

  5. Pour the thickened sauce over the lobster mixture to moisten it.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle additional bread crumbs on top.

  2. Bake in a Dutch oven until golden.

  3. Brown the bread crumbs with a salamander.

  4. Serve in the scallop shells.

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. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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 rich, savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form a golden, crisp crust on top when browned.
Floured butter
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth sauce that moistens the filling.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that cut through the richness of the lobster.

The step that matters

Stew the shells until reduced by half. Reducing the shell stock concentrates its flavor and gelatin, so the sauce tastes deeply of lobster and thickens properly when combined with the butter.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, tarragon, vinegar, bread, butter. 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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