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Fricasseed Lobster

A lobster fricassee made with broth, cream, butter, lemon, and served with toasted Boston crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fricasseed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster and cut the meat into pieces half an inch square.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, broth, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew gently for five minutes.

  3. Add the cream and heat until just boiling.

  4. Stir in the butter until melted, then remove from heat.

  5. Quickly stir in the lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted Boston crackers.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and body of the dish, with its texture set by gentle cooking.
Rich veal or chicken broth
Supplies the savory liquid base that carries the seasoning through the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a glossy finish when stirred in off the heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and sweet lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and butter near boiling. Cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard for long, so heat it only until just boiling and remove from heat before stirring in the butter. Lemon juice is added quickly at the end to keep the sauce from curdling under acid and heat.

“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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