Name: Vol-au-Vent of Lobster
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons butter; 1½ tablespoons flour; 1 pint boiling white stock; juice of ½ lemon; salt to taste; a pinch of cayenne pepper; 2 egg yolks; 1 tablespoon cold water; meat of 2 small lobsters, diced

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Vol-au-Vent of Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.
Gradually pour in the boiling white stock and bring to a boil.
Add the lemon juice, salt, cayenne, and the beaten egg yolks mixed with cold water.

Finish and serve

Stir in the diced lobster meat and cook for 1 minute.
Fill the pastry case, cover, and serve immediately.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Butter: Enriches the sauce with fat and adds a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour: Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Egg yolks: Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Lobster meat: Provides the main flavour and tender texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.

“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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Lobster Sauce174 recipes

Lobster Croquettes99 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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Vol-au-Vent of Lobster