Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Lobster Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
Make the chowder
Scald the milk in a saucepan.
Stir in the salt, cayenne, butter, and flour, and cook for 1 minute.
Add the lobster and simmer for 5 minutes.
Assemble and serve
Line a tureen with the toasted and buttered crackers, dipping each quickly in boiling water before placing it.
Pour the chowder into the tureen and serve with sliced lemon.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Lobster
- Provides the main meaty texture and sweet seafood flavor of the chowder.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the chowder and gives it a creamy body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the chowder.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the chowder body.
- Boston crackers
- Soften slightly from the butter and hot water, adding starchy body and a toasted flavor.
The step that matters
Cooking the milk with butter and flour. Flour must cook in the hot liquid for a full minute so its starch swells and thickens the chowder while losing its raw taste. Stirring keeps lumps from forming.
“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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