Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Broiled Live Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Clean the lobster and place it in a buttered wire broiler.
Broil for 8 minutes on the flesh side.
Turn the lobster and broil for 6 minutes on the shell side.
Serve with melted butter.
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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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Live lobster
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps keep the lobster from sticking to the broiler wire.
The step that matters
Turning the lobster. Broiling the flesh side first cooks the delicate meat under direct heat, and turning it lets the shell side finish cooking more gently so the meat does not dry out.
“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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