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Lobster Butter

A smooth butter mixture flavored with mace, cayenne, and sea salt, made from fresh lobster.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,268 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lobster Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the butter

  1. Pound the coral into a smooth paste.

  2. Mix in the butter, mace, cayenne, and salt until well blended.

Chill and serve

  1. Set aside in a cool place or over ice until firm enough to shape into pats.

  2. Serve garnished with curled parsley or light foliage.

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. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 coral
Provides the rich flavour and bright orange colour that defines the butter.
Butter
Carries the coral and spices and sets firm when chilled, giving the butter its shape.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic note that complements the shellfish flavour.
Cayenne
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the rich, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Chilling until firm. Butter softens quickly at room temperature and only holds its shape when cold. Chilling it in a cool place or over ice lets it firm enough to shape into pats without becoming greasy or losing its form.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, 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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