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Boudinettes Op Lobsters, Prawns, or Shrimps

A small cup of lobster, prawn, or shrimp cooked gently in butter and spices, served with clear butter and optional white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boudinettes Op Lobsters, Prawns, or Shrimps

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the seafood by shelling it quickly and handling it as little as possible.

  2. In an enamelled saucepan, combine the seafood with butter and spices.

Cook gently

  1. Place the saucepan by a gentle fire to heat the seafood gradually, shaking it occasionally.

  2. Do not allow the seafood to boil; heat until the butter is close to simmering, then remove from heat.

  3. Let the seafood sit in the saucepan for a few minutes, then transfer it to small round cups.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour clear butter over the seafood, avoiding any sediment.

  2. Serve the boudinettes dry or with a little rich white sauce colored with lobster coral.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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, prawns, or shrimps
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its delicate seafood flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, gently coating the seafood as it heats.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle and do not let the seafood boil. Boiling toughens seafood proteins, making them firm and dry. Heating gradually until the butter is just short of simmering keeps the seafood tender and moist.

“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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