Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Lobsters

A method for boiling lobsters and serving them with parsley garnish and remoulade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. Bring 1 gallon of water to a fast boil.

  2. Add 5 oz of coarse sea salt.

Cook the lobsters

  1. Add the lobster to the boiling water and cook a moderate-sized lobster for 15-25 minutes and a large lobster for 30-40 minutes.

  2. Remove the lobster from the pot.

Prepare and serve

  1. Take off the large claws.

  2. Crack the shells across the joints without disfiguring them.

  3. Separate the tail from the body.

  4. Split the tail down the middle.

  5. Arrange the lobster neatly on a napkin.

  6. Garnish with curled parsley.

  7. Serve with remoulade or your preferred sauce.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein, whose tender texture depends on careful cooking time.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the lobster meat is lightly flavoured as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking time for each lobster. Lobster meat turns firm and rubbery when overcooked, so timing must match the lobster's size. Removing it from the pot at the right point keeps the flesh tender and moist.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes