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Lobster Butter

A butter-based sauce made from lobster coral, clarified butter, cayenne pepper, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the butter

  1. In a mortar, combine all the lobster coral with an equal weight of clarified butter.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth and free of lumps.

  3. Add cayenne pepper, about ¼ teaspoon for every 4 tablespoons of the mixture, while pounding.

  4. If desired, grate in a little nutmeg.

Store or serve

  1. For immediate use, it is ready; for storage, increase the cayenne slightly and pack into small tin pots, pressing down with a pestle or spoon.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Lobster + nutmegtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster coral
Provides the rich flavour and orange colour that define the butter.
Butter
Carries the coral flavour and gives a smooth, spreadable fat base.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Pounding until smooth. Pounding breaks up the coral and distributes it evenly through the fat. Lumps left behind can leave a grainy texture and uneven colour and flavour in the finished butter.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

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