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Creamed Lobster

A lobster dish baked in its shell with a creamy mixture of eggs, butter, flour, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and cut them in half without splitting the shell.

  2. Remove the meat and clean it thoroughly, then stew the meat.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat, add the grated onion, then the flour, and stir.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, mix in the beaten eggs and lobster meat, season to taste.

  4. Wash the lobster shells and fill them with the mixture.

Bake

  1. Top each filled shell with small lumps of butter and sprinkle with bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat that forms the body of the dish.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm, custard-like texture when heated.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion base into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the eggs. Eggs set when heated, so adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them and leave the filling grainy. Mixing them in off the heat keeps the filling smooth and evenly set.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, flour, butter, 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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