Lobster Spices: Tarragon, Shallot, Mustard, Celery and the Comoros Vanilla Sauce

Lobster is usually seasoned lightly, often with nothing more than melted butter, so the sweet meat stays in front. When cooks do reach for herbs and spices, the same handful turns up again and again: tarragon, shallot, mustard, parsley, celery and thyme. And in the Comoros islands, lobster is paired with vanilla. This page covers the job each one does in three named dishes: lobster Thermidor, the lobster roll and lobster in vanilla sauce.

At a glance

Tarragon: the classic lobster herb

PROSEA, the Southeast Asian plant-resources handbook, singles out tarragon leaves as particularly suited to chicken, egg and lobster dishes, and describes the herb’s sweet anise-like scent and bittersweet flavor.¹ Chef Jean-Pierre’s Thermidor uses 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh tarragon (or thyme), and Andrew Zimmern suggests tarragon as an optional addition to a lobster roll.²³ For how it behaves in cooking, see tarragon uses and dried vs. fresh tarragon.

Lobster Thermidor

Chef Jean-Pierre calls Thermidor a classic and very special dish. His 2022 version shows how it is seasoned:²

The dried-herb note is his ratio, not a measured conversion.² In our judgment, the mustard’s job here is to keep the cream and cheese from tasting flat.

Shallot

Shallot is the base aromatic in both sauced lobster dishes on this page: about ¼ cup in the Thermidor and 3 minced shallots in Saveur’s vanilla sauce.²⁴

Mustard

Beyond Thermidor, mustard is part of the lobster roll by way of mayonnaise. Saskatchewan’s agriculture ministry lists mayonnaise among the main uses of yellow mustard,⁵ and Katzer notes that mustard seeds contain emulsifiers, so mustard improves the stability of emulsified sauces as well as their flavor.⁶ See mustard powder and yellow mustard seeds.

Thyme

Chef Jean-Pierre offers thyme as the alternative to tarragon in Thermidor.² The characteristic constituents of thyme oil are thymol and carvacrol,⁸ which give it a sharper, more savory edge than tarragon (our judgment). See tarragon vs. thyme.

The lobster roll

Andrew Zimmern’s Maine-style lobster roll dresses the meat with mayonnaise “just to coat,” ½ cup of minced celery, 2 tablespoons each of minced parsley and chives (or scallions or shallots), salt and black pepper, with lemon or tarragon as options.³ Celery adds crunch and parsley adds color against the pale dressing (our judgment). See celery leaves and chives.

Lobster with vanilla: the Comoros national dish

Saveur’s Diane Selkirk reports that the national dish of the Comoros islands is langouste à la vanille, local lobster in a vanilla sauce, and that the French began growing vanilla there in the 1890s.⁷ Saveur’s recipe grills the lobster and makes the sauce from 3 minced shallots, ¼ cup white wine, 2 split vanilla beans with their seeds, and ½ cup heavy cream, finished with salt and black pepper.⁴ Saveur notes the dish is traditionally made with local rock lobster.⁴

Vanilla’s main aroma compound is vanillin, about 2 percent of a fully cured bean depending on where it was grown.⁹ The recipe uses whole beans;⁴ no source opened here compares beans with extract in this dish. If a sauce comes out too sweet or perfumed, see too much vanilla.

Related

• Tarragon
• Vanilla
• Thyme
• Parsley