Name: Lobster Butter
Ingredients: Lobster coral; ½ cup fresh butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Lobster Butter

Ingredients

Lobster coral
½ cup fresh butter
¼ teaspoon salt
cayenne pepper to taste

Directions

In a mortar, rub down the lobster coral until smooth.
Add fresh butter gradually until the mixture is creamy and deep red.
Season with cayenne pepper and salt to taste.
For longer storage, make the seasoning stronger.
Transfer to pots and tie over.

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.

Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,247 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: Gives the butter its deep red color and rich, briny flavor.
Fresh butter: Carries the coral's flavor and gives the mixture a creamy, spreadable texture.

“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.