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Lobsters Au Gratin

A baked lobster dish topped with breadcrumbs and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lobsters Au Gratin

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the lobsters until cooked, then remove the meat and chop it.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the chopped lobster, cheese, salt, and pepper, mixing well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main protein and sweet, delicate flavour of the gratin.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour cook into a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the lobster together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the starch swells.
Cheese
Adds savoury richness and helps bind the sauce while it melts.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps. Cooking the sauce until it thickens lets the flour starch swell fully, which gives the gratin its body.

“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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