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Lobster Patties

A baked pastry-wrapped lobster mixture with gravy, breadcrumbs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Mash the small claws and spawn in a dish until smooth.

  2. Add gravy and bread crumbs.

  3. Heat over the fire until boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture until it reaches a creamy thickness.

Make the filling

  1. Combine half of the strained mixture with the lobster, along with butter, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  2. Warm the mixture until the butter melts.

  3. Let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a patty pan or dish with puff pastry.

  2. Fill it with the lobster mixture.

  3. Cover with more puff pastry.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the top pastry cover.

  2. Warm the remaining sauce with a little butter.

  3. Pour the sauce over the patty.

  4. Garnish with squeezed lemon.

  5. Place the top pastry cover back on, leaving space to see the filling.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty filling and its delicate sweet flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the filling and sauce.
Gravy
Adds savory body and moisture to the claw and spawn mixture.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the mixture, helping it hold together as a creamy sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp shell that browns as it bakes.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture until it reaches a creamy thickness. Straining removes solid bits so the sauce turns smooth and creamy. Lumps left behind would make the filling grainy and uneven in texture.

“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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