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Lobster with Thick Sauce

A lobster served with a thick cream sauce flavored with lemon, capsicums, cayenne, mace, shrimps, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Capsicum and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,571 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster with Thick Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobster

  1. Boil the live lobster until cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add cream, lemon juice, capsicums, cayenne, and mace to the melted butter.

  3. Let the sauce simmer gently for 30 minutes until thick like custard.

  4. Stir in the picked shrimps and parsley, warming them through.

Serve

  1. Remove the lobster from the shell and arrange it on a plate.

  2. Pour the thick sauce over the lobster and serve immediately.

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. Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Lobster + shrimptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 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; cooking it firm and tender is the base of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and thickens as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream sauce.
Capsicums
Contribute sweetness and vegetable flavour to the sauce.
Shrimps
Add extra seafood flavour and tender bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce. Cream thickens gradually as its water evaporates and its proteins set. Heating it too hard or too long can cause it to split or turn grainy, so keep it at a gentle simmer and watch for a custard-like thickness.

Swap the mace

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

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

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