Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lobster Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the lobster
Boil the lobsters until cooked, then remove the tails and cut them in half.
Remove the gut and cut each tail into four pieces, placing them in a small dish.
Add the meat from the claws and the picked meat from the body, discarding any furry parts.
Beat the spawn in a mortar along with the shells.
Make the sauce
In a pot, combine the shells with water, vinegar, pepper, salt, and pounded mace.
Add the butter rolled in flour and simmer until the flavors are extracted.
Strain the mixture and pour it over the lobster in the dish.
Bake and serve
Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and cover with pastry.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) until the pastry is cooked through.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, which is cooked and portioned before being layered in the pie.
- Butter
- Rolled in flour, it thickens the simmered shell liquor into a richer sauce.
- Flour
- Combined with butter to thicken the strained liquid as it simmers.
- Vinegar
- Adds a sharp acidity that helps draw flavor from the shells during simmering.
The step that matters
Simmer the shell liquor until flavorful. Simmering the shells with water and vinegar extracts flavor and gelatin-like body; too little simmering leaves a thin, bland sauce, while overheating can make the butter-flour mixture lumpy or greasy.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour):
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour. 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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