Name: Lobster Puddings
Ingredients: whiting or soles (for quenelle farce); lobster meat, cut into scallops; butter (for greasing); bechamel sauce; lobster butter; essence of anchovy; lemon juice; cayenne pepper; water (for steaming)

Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a quenelle farce using whiting or soles.
Butter a pudding mold and place the lobster scallops evenly inside.
Fill the gaps with the farce mixture.
Place the molds in a stewpan with a little water to steam for about 45 minutes.
Remove from the heat and drain on a cloth.
Turn the puddings onto a dish and remove the molds.
Mask with bechamel sauce mixed with a little lobster butter, essence of anchovy, lemon juice, and cayenne.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together236 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Whiting + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together82 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Whiting + lobstertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).