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Creamed Lobster

A lobster dish cooked in a butter, flour, milk sauce with lemon and cayenne, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Creamed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually pour in the milk, stirring until smooth and thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the lobster, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice; mix well.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the thick cream.

  3. Transfer to a buttered dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  5. Serve with quartered lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.
Thick cream
Adds body and richness to the sauce when stirred in at the end.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the milk, stirring until smooth and thick. Adding milk too quickly to the butter and flour can form lumps that are hard to smooth out. Pouring slowly while stirring lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour, milk, pepper, cream, bread):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, milk, pepper, cream, 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.

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