Name: Lobster Souffle
Ingredients: 2 whole whitings; 1 hen lobster; ⅓ cup cream; 2 ounces butter; ½ cup flour; ⅓ cup fish stock; 4 eggs; cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Whiting and lobster work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the meat from the whitings and the coral from the lobster. Pound them together in a mortar and pass through a wire sieve.
Make a sauce with 2 tablespoons of butter, ½ cup of flour, and the fish stock. Cook well.
Pound the lobster meat with the whiting and sauce, adding the eggs one at a time. Pass through a fine sieve.
Add cayenne pepper and whipped cream to the mixture.
Butter a souffle mold and pour in the mixture.

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.

Whiting + lobstertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).