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Lobster in Butter

A lobster dish cooked in melted butter with lemon, salt, white pepper, and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the lobster meat, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Cook over an open fire until the lobster is heated through.

  4. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the flavor and keeps the lobster moist while it heats.
Lobster meat
Main protein; it turns firm and opaque as it heats through.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Cook over an open fire until the lobster is heated through. Lobster is already cooked, so it only needs gentle heat. Overcooking toughens the protein and makes it rubbery, so heat it just until warm throughout.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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