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Lobster with Mustard Sauce

Lobster served with a sauce of salt, cayenne pepper, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster with Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the lobster until done.

  2. In a bowl, mix salt, Cayenne pepper, mustard, and vinegar.

  3. Pour the sauce over the lobster just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together692 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the protein and flavour that the sauce accompanies.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the richness of the lobster.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the mustard.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce over the lobster just before serving. Vinegar and mustard are acidic and pungent, and the sauce is mixed separately, so it should be added just before serving to keep the flavours sharp rather than letting the acid soften and dull the lobster over time.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Lettucefits less well

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