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To Boil Lobster

A method for boiling a lobster in salted water and serving it with butter or sweet oil and melted butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Boil Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a large kettle with enough water to cover the lobster.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt for every quart of water.

  3. Bring the water to a rapid boil.

Cook the lobster

  1. Carefully add the lobster head first to the boiling water.

  2. Boil briskly for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the lobster with tongs and let it drain.

  4. Wipe off any scum and rub the lobster with butter or sweet oil.

Serve

  1. Crack the large claws without shattering them.

  2. Place a napkin on a large serving dish.

  3. Using a sharp knife, split the lobster from head to tail and lay it open on the napkin.

  4. Arrange a large claw at each end and serve with melted butter sauce.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Lobster
Is the main dish, cooked whole in boiling salted water until its flesh turns opaque and firm.
Butter or sweet oil
Rubbed on the cooked shell to add richness and a glossy finish.
Melted butter sauce
Served alongside to add fat and richness to the mild lobster meat.

The step that matters

Bringing the water to a rapid boil before adding the lobster. Adding the lobster to water that is not yet at a rapid boil lowers the temperature and slows cooking, so the meat may cook unevenly or take longer to set. Keeping the water boiling vigorously helps the lobster cook quickly and evenly.

“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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