Name: Plain Lobster
Ingredients: lobster meat; little claws; parsley; coarse sea salt; black pepper; vinegar; olive oil or melted butter

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the meat from the lobster shell.
Place the meat on a platter.
Garnish with the little claws and parsley.
Season individually with coarse sea salt, black pepper, vinegar, and olive oil or melted butter.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat: Forms the main body of the dish and provides its delicate, sweet flavor.
Olive oil or melted butter: Adds fat and a rich mouthfeel that carries the lobster's flavor.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sweet flavor of the lobster.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, pepper, vinegar, olive):

Tarragonfits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, vinegar, olive. 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.