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To Butter Lobsters or Crabs

A dish of minced lobster or crab meat mixed with wine, pickle, gravy, butter, spices, and egg yolks, served in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Butter Lobsters or Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pick all the meat from the bodies of the lobster or crab and mince it small.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the minced meat with white wine, lemon pickle, rich gravy, butter, salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the mixture with the beaten egg yolks and heat until hot.

  2. Spoon the mixture into the large shells and garnish with toasted bread.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster or crab meat
Forms the main body of the filling and provides its savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich filling.
Rich gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, binding the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the filling taste rounded and smooth.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with the beaten egg yolks and heat until hot.. Egg yolks set when heated, but too much heat can curdle them into a grainy texture. Heat gently and keep stirring so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, white wine, lemon, butter, pepper, egg, bread. 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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