Skip to main content
Main

G Ratin' of Lobster

A baked lobster dish topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

G Ratin' of 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 the shells

  1. Remove all the meat from the lobster and wash the body, tail, and shells.

  2. Cut the lobster in half down the back.

  3. Dry and butter the shells.

  4. Sprinkle the shells with bread crumbs.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the lobster meat finely.

  2. Mix the chopped lobster meat with parsley, shallot, essence of anchovies, vinegar, cayenne pepper, salt, and béchamel sauce.

  3. Boil the mixture well.

  4. Add the egg yolk to the mixture and let it cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the shells with the mixture.

  2. Cover the filled shells with bread crumbs and pieces of butter.

  3. Brown the shells in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Serve on a napkin.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat and sweet, delicate flavor of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.
Béchamel sauce
Binds the chopped lobster into a moist, creamy filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the filling as it cools.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture well. Boiling the béchamel-based filling thickens it and cooks the egg yolk once it is added. Letting it cool before filling the shells keeps the filling stable and prevents it from running out during baking.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, bread, parsley, vinegar, pepper, sauce):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, bread, parsley, vinegar, pepper, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes