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Chlery Lobster

A creamy lobster dish flavored with celery and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chlery Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler.

  2. Whisk in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the milk. Stir until smooth.

  4. Add the minced celery. Cook for 3 minutes.

  5. Stir in the lobster, salt and cayenne pepper.

  6. Stir in the egg yolks. Cook until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and body of the dish.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild vegetable flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook and add richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks. Cook until thickened.. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the sauce gets too hot or boils, they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly, which is why the double boiler helps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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