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A Receipt to Pot Lobsters

Lobsters baked in clarified butter with mace, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Receipt to Pot Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Pick all the meat from the tails and claws of the lobsters, removing the black gut.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the mace, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and salt. Season the lobster meat with the spice mixture.

Bake and pot

  1. Layer some clarified butter in a deep earthen pot, then add the lobster meat. Cover the lobster with the remaining clarified butter.

  2. Tie a paper over the pot and place it in a 300°F (150°C) oven until the lobsters are tender.

  3. Remove the pot and let the lobsters drain on a dish.

  4. Place the lobsters back in the pot, keeping them whole and only splitting the tails.

  5. Pour a spoonful or two of the red butter from baking over the top. Let it melt before cooling, then cover with white wax and seal.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main protein, which turns tender and sweet when gently baked.
Clarified butter
Carries the lobster in fat, keeping the meat moist and rich during slow baking.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the lobster.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the seasoned meat.
Cloves
Adds a strong, pungent aroma that deepens the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Slow baking until tender. Baking at a low 300°F keeps the lobster meat from toughening. Proteins seize and dry out when overcooked, so checking for tenderness rather than relying on time protects the texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

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