Why it works: Lobster and meat work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 909 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Baked Lobster
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Shape and coat
Shape the lobster meat into a lobster form on a serving dish.
Pound the red part and the spawn, then spread it over the shaped lobster meat.
Brush the lobster with the reserved beaten egg.
Bake and serve
Bake for about 15 minutes.
Serve hot in the baking dish, garnished with parsley at each end.
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.
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Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,040 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,765 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together890 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster meat
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides its substance.
- Reserved lobster eggs
- Spread over the lobster as a coating that adds richness and flavour.
The step that matters
Brush the lobster with the reserved beaten egg. Beaten egg coats the surface and sets during baking, forming a thin layer that helps the top brown and hold the shape of the shaped meat.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, egg):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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