Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Lobster

A lobster dish with seasoned meat, mustard, cayenne, salt, sauce, and a vinegar‑topped coral, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Deviled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove all the meat from the boiled lobster and reserve the coral.

  2. In a bowl, season the lobster meat with mustard, cayenne, salt, and table sauce.

Cook and finish

  1. Stew the mixture in a covered saucepan with just enough hot water to prevent burning.

  2. Rub the coral smooth, adding vinegar until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir it into the saucepan.

  3. Prepare the dressing before heating the meat; it should boil once before adding the coral.

  4. Stir in the butter, and when it boils again, remove it from heat immediately to avoid toughening the meat.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Provides the main body of the dish, and gentle stewing keeps it tender rather than tough.
Coral
Adds richness and a deeper colour and flavour to the sauce once rubbed smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and thins the coral to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Remove the mixture from heat as soon as the butter boils. Prolonged or vigorous heating causes the proteins in lobster meat to tighten and toughen, so it should be taken off the heat promptly once the butter has boiled again.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, sauce, vinegar, butter. 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 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes