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To Roast Lobsters

This dish involves boiling a lobster until half cooked, then roasting it with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

To Roast Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the lobster until half cooked.

  2. Remove the lobster from the shell while hot.

Roast and baste

  1. Rub the lobster with butter.

  2. Place the lobster before the fire.

  3. Baste the lobster with butter until it has a fine froth.

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. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and its milk solids help the surface brown and froth.

The step that matters

Baste until a fine froth forms. Basting with melted butter carries heat over the surface and keeps the lobster moist. Stop too early or let it dry out and the flesh toughens and the surface does not brown evenly.

“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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