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To Stew Lobsters

A lobster stew made with boiled lobster meat, shells, water, mace, white pepper, wine, lemon, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the meat from the boiled lobsters and set aside.

  2. Combine water, mace, white pepper, salt, and lobster shells in a pot.

  3. Boil the mixture until the flavor is extracted.

  4. Strain the mixture and pour the liquid into a stewpan.

Make the stew

  1. Add the lobster meat to the stewpan.

  2. Add the butter rolled in flour to the stewpan.

  3. Add the white wine to the stewpan.

  4. Add the lemon juice to the stewpan.

  5. Add the bread crumbs to the stewpan.

  6. Cook until everything is heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve in a suitable dish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat that makes up the body of the stew.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it adds richness and helps thicken the liquid.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the stewed mixture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of butter and lobster.

The step that matters

Add the butter rolled in flour. Flour coated on butter must be stirred in well and heated so it thickens the liquid smoothly; added in lumps or left uncooked, it leaves a pasty texture and a raw floury taste.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, mace, butter, white wine, lemon, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, mace, butter, white wine, lemon, 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.

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