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Lobster, Devilled

A lobster dish seasoned with butter, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Lobster, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the lobster until cooked, then remove the meat from the shell.

  2. Chop the lobster meat and mix it with butter, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the lobster shell with the mixture and top with breadcrumbs.

  2. Broil in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until golden brown.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and the meat that forms the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and keeping the filling moist.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the butter.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and umami to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster and butter.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when broiled on top of the filling.

The step that matters

Broil until golden brown. Breadcrumbs and butter brown quickly under high heat, so the topping can burn before the filling is heated through. Watch closely and remove once golden.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, mustard, sauce, 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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