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Pickled Lobsters

Pickled Lobsters are lobster meat preserved in a seasoned vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pickled Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Split the fresh boiled lobsters and remove the meat carefully.

  2. Mix the mace, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and table salt in a bowl.

  3. Rub the seasoning mixture thoroughly into the lobster meat.

  4. Place the seasoned lobster meat in an earthen jar and repeat the rubbing for 1-2 days.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the lobster meat into small jars.

  2. Pour the vinegar, chilies, cucumber vinegar, and sal prunelle over the lobster until covered by 1 inch.

  3. Add enough olive oil to cover the mixture by ½ inch.

  4. Seal the jars with a wetted bladder and cover with leather for safe keeping.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the preserve and absorbs the seasoning during rubbing.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the lobster meat, helping preserve it.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, helping preserve the lobster and giving it a sharp tang.
Olive oil
Forms a fat layer over the top that seals out air from the jarred lobster.

The step that matters

Rubbing the seasoning into the lobster meat. Seasoning must be worked evenly through the meat over the full period. Uneven rubbing leaves patches with too little salt or spice, which can spoil or taste unevenly preserved.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar, cucumber, olive):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar, cucumber, olive. 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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