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To Pickle Lobsters

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 ↓

To Pickle Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Split the boiled lobsters and remove the flesh from the tails and claws carefully.

  2. Sprinkle cayenne, ground mace, and nutmeg over the lobster flesh and press it down with the back of a spoon.

  3. Pack the lobster tightly in jars or deep pots.

  4. Fill the jars with the best vinegar, adding 2 tablespoons of Chili vinegar or twice as much fine cucumber vinegar.

  5. Cover the surface with salad oil and seal the jars with thick paper.

  6. Alternatively, boil vinegar with a little salt, white peppercorns, ginger, and sliced nutmeg for 5 minutes and let it cool.

  7. Gently heat the lobsters in the cooled vinegar without boiling, then place them in jars and pour the pickle over them.

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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