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Scalloped Lobster

A baked lobster dish with a butter‑flour sauce, anchovy essence, cayenne, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Scalloped Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the liquid from the tin of lobster into a bowl.

  2. Mix the liquid with the flour and stir in the boiling water.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the mixture until thick.

  4. Add the essence of anchovy and cayenne pepper, then mix in any bits of lobster shell.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer with bread crumbs and lobster mixture.

  2. Top with more bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes until golden.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Preserved lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and the bulk of the dish.
Fine flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce that holds the lobster together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps the topping brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden layer on top and soak up some of the sauce.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savory depth that enhances the lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Stirring the flour mixture into melted butter and cooking it until thick lets the starch swell and gelatinize, which gives the sauce body. Adding liquid too quickly or leaving lumps can make it uneven.

“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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