Name: To Pot Lobsters
Ingredients: 1 boiled lobster; 2 blades of mace; a little white pepper; coarse sea salt; 1 egg-sized lump of butter; clarified butter

Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

To Pot Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the meat from the claws and belly of the boiled lobster.
In a marble mortar, combine the lobster meat, mace, white pepper, salt, and butter; beat until it forms a paste.
Place half of the paste in a pot.
Lay the tail meat in the middle of the pot and cover it with the remaining paste.
Press down firmly and pour clarified butter over the top, about ¼ inch thick.
To clarify butter, melt it in a clean saucepan over low heat, skim off the foam, let it stand, and pour off the clear liquid without disturbing the sediment.

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.

Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
White pepper + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,312 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,405 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Mace and butter 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

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, white pepper, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.