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Creamed Lobster

A lobster dish baked in shells with a creamy egg and flour sauce topped with butter and crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Creamed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and cut them in half without splitting the shell.

  2. Remove the meat and clean it thoroughly, then stew the meat.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, add the grated onion, and then stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring well, and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten eggs and lobster meat. Season with salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Wash the lobster shells and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Top each filled shell with small lumps of butter and sprinkle with bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

Lobsters
Provide the main meat and flavor, and the shells serve as the baking dish.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving it a firm, custard-like texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water mixture into a smooth base for the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Onion
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Mix in the eggs off the heat. Adding beaten eggs to a very hot mixture can scramble them. Removing the pan from the heat first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set gently during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, flour, butter, bread. 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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