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To Pot Lobsters

Lobsters cooked in a pot with a butter paste and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

To Pot Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Remove the spawn, coral, flesh, and pickings from the lobster's head and claws.

  2. Pound the ingredients well and season with cayenne, white pepper, and mace.

  3. Mix the pounded mixture with enough melted butter to form a firm paste.

Pot the lobster

  1. Remove the flesh from the lobster's tail and place it in a pot.

  2. Fill the pot with the lobster paste.

  3. Cover the top of the pot with clarified butter.

  4. Store the pot in a cool place.

Cook

  1. Boil the lobster for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provides the main body of meat that forms the paste and the potted filling.
Melted butter
Binds the pounded lobster into a firm paste and adds richness and moisture.
Clarified butter
Seals the top of the pot, excluding air to help preserve the contents.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a sharp, lingering heat that seasons the paste.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the paste.

The step that matters

Mix the pounded mixture with enough melted butter to form a firm paste.. Too little butter leaves the paste crumbly, while too much makes it greasy and loose. The butter both binds the pounded meat and carries the seasoning, so the amount must be judged by texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, mace, butter. 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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