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To Stew Lobsters

A stew made from boiled lobster meat and a broth of lobster shells, water, mace, pepper, salt, butter, Madeira, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Stew Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the meat from the shells of the boiled lobsters.

  2. In a pot, combine the shells with 2/3 quart of water, mace, unground pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Boil for at least 1 hour to extract flavor from the shells, then strain the liquid.

Finish the stew

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the richest lobster portions and some firm meat with thin melted butter.

  2. Squeeze in a small amount of lemon juice.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of Madeira.

  4. Pour this mixture into the strained gravy.

  5. Warm it before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 meat that gives the stew its sweet, rich flavor.
Thin melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the lobster mixture.
Madeira
Adds a fortified wine sweetness and depth of aroma to the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that lifts and balances the rich butter and lobster.

The step that matters

Boil the shells for at least 1 hour, then strain. Long simmering pulls flavor and body from the shells into the water, so a short boil yields a weak, thin stock that the finished stew cannot make up for.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, butter, lemon. 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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