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Preserve

Lobster Catsup

A preserved lobster sauce made with sherry, cayenne, and black pepper, stored in bottles for up to a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Lobster Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and pound the coral in a marble mortar until bruised.

  2. Add the lobster meat and moisten with a little sherry wine, then mix in the cayenne pepper.

  3. Pour in the remaining sherry and mix thoroughly.

Bottle and store

  1. Transfer the mixture into two wide-mouthed bottles.

  2. Top each bottle with a tablespoon of whole black pepper, seal tightly, and tie with leather.

  3. Store in a cool place; it will keep for up to a year.

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. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + sherrytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,247 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat and the coral, which adds richness and flavour to the catsup.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and moistens the mixture so it blends evenly.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that sharpens the flavour of the lobster.

The step that matters

Pound the coral until bruised. Bruising the coral breaks down its cell walls so it blends smoothly and releases its rich flavour and colour into the mixture. Leaving it in large pieces gives an uneven texture and weaker flavour.

“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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