Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Lobsters

A stew made from boiled lobster meat, shells, water, spices, butter, wine, lemon juice, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Stew Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Remove the meat from the boiled lobsters and set aside.

  2. In a pot, combine water, mace, white pepper, coarse sea salt, and the lobster shells.

  3. Boil until the flavor is extracted from the shells, then strain the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the strained liquid, lobster meat, butter rolled in flour, white wine, lemon juice, and bread crumbs.

  2. Stew until heated through, then serve in a suitable dish.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the stew.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, thickening the stew slightly.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and lobster.

The step that matters

Boil the shells only until the flavor is extracted. Boiling the shells long enough draws out their flavor into the water, which forms the base of the stew. Over-boiling can make the liquid taste harsh or bitter, so it is best to stop once the broth tastes well flavored.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, mace, butter, white wine, lemon, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipes