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Lobsters, to Dress

A boiled lobster served with salad oil and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and parsley work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 890 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobsters, to Dress

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lobster well.

  2. Tie the claws securely.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the lobster head first in salted boiling water for 20 to 40 minutes, depending on its size.

  2. When cool enough to handle, rub the lobster with a little salad oil.

  3. Break off the claws and divide the tail lengthwise.

  4. Place the lobster body upright in the center of a dish, with the tail halves on either side and the claws at the ends.

  5. Garnish the dish with parsley.

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. Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 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
Provides the main protein, whose texture is set by gentle boiling.
Salad oil
Adds a thin coat of fat that gives the cooked shell a glossy finish and mild richness.

The step that matters

Boil the lobster head first in salted boiling water. Boiling time depends on size, and overcooking toughens the proteins in the meat, making it rubbery. Starting head first ensures the body, where the thickest meat sits, is cooked through. Check for doneness early and rely on the record's range as a guide.

“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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