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Stuffed Lobster

A lobster tail filled with forcemeat, breaded, baked, and served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Fill the lobster tails with forcemeat.

  2. Roll them in bread crumbs.

  3. Place them in a baking dish and smooth the surface with a knife.

  4. Pour a little clarified butter over the tops.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 6 minutes.

  2. Serve on a folded napkin garnished with parsley greens.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Lobster + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together736 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster tails
Provide the main shell-enclosed meat that the stuffing is packed into.
Forcemeat
Fills the tails, keeping the meat moist and giving the dish a tender, cohesive filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating on the outside that helps the surface brown in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour on the tops.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 6 minutes. Lobster meat is delicate and overcooks quickly, becoming rubbery. Timing the bake closely keeps the meat tender while the crumb topping browns.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, bread, butter):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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