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Lobster, Baked

Baked lobster stuffed with butter, white sauce, egg, lemon juice, parsley, shallots, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster, Baked

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 the lobster

  1. Cut the lobster in half lengthwise and remove the meat from the shells.

  2. Mince the lobster meat coarsely.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the shallots for 2-3 minutes without browning.

  2. Add the lobster meat, white sauce, parsley, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stir over heat until thoroughly hot.

  4. Beat the egg slightly.

  5. Add the beaten egg to the mixture, cooking until it begins to bind.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mixture back into the lobster shells.

  2. Cover lightly with brown breadcrumbs.

  3. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the topping brown.
White sauce
Adds moisture and body so the filling stays creamy rather than dry.
Egg
Binds the filling as it heats, so it holds together in the shell.
Brown breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster and butter.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture must be cooked only until it begins to bind. Overheating will make it curdle or turn rubbery.

“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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