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To Stew Lobsters

A stew of lobster meat cooked with butter, anchovy essence, white pepper, salt, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

To Stew Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick the meat from the shells of the lobsters and place it in a stewpan.

  2. Add melted butter, essence of anchovy, white pepper, salt, and powdered mace.

  3. Stew together, shaking the pan over the fire until the lobster is thoroughly warmed.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Lobsters
Provide the main sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the dish.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a silky moisture that coats the lobster meat.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a savoury, salty depth that enhances the flavour of the seafood.

The step that matters

Stew together until thoroughly warmed. Lobster meat turns tough and rubbery if overheated, so it should be warmed gently and only until heated through. Shaking the pan keeps the butter evenly distributed and prevents the meat from scorching on the bottom.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, mace. 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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