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Potted Lobster

A lobster prepared by boiling, then pounded with clarified butter, mace, Cayenne pepper, and salt, and served in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Wash the lobster in salt water.

  2. Boil the lobster in salt water until cooked.

  3. Remove the lobster and let it cool on a cloth.

  4. Cut open the shell and extract the flesh from the tail and claws.

  5. Chop the lobster flesh into small pieces.

Make the potted lobster

  1. Pound the lobster in a mortar, mixing in clarified butter, mace, Cayenne, and table salt to taste.

  2. Once smooth and stiff, fill pots with the mixture.

  3. Cover with clarified butter and tie white paper over the top.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lobster + macetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together596 recipes

Mace and pepper 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
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its flavour and texture.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and helps bind the pounded lobster into a smooth paste.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the lobster.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the rich lobster flavour.

The step that matters

Pound until smooth and stiff. Pounding breaks the lobster fibres into a fine, even paste that spreads well and holds together when chilled. Stopping too early leaves a coarse, loose texture, while the butter must be well mixed in so the paste sets firm rather than greasy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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