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Fricasse of Lobster

A creamy lobster dish with butter, flour, cream, and seasonings, served on toast, in the shell, or in ramekins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kaufman, Nettie M · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fricasse of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine 1 cup lobster meat, pinch red pepper, 1/4 can peas, and 1 teaspoon salt.

  2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter and add 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons flour and 1 teaspoon chopped parsley.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 1 cup cream.

  2. Stir butter and flour until smooth like a paste, then add cream, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and parsley, and let boil.

  3. Add the lobster, which has already been cooked and cut into dice, and let boil a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add the peas.

  2. Serve on toast, in the shell, or in ramekins.

By Kaufman, Nettie M. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,050 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

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 its texture is the centre of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Working the butter and flour into a smooth paste before adding the cream. Flour must be fully blended with the fat so it does not clump. Lumps stay as raw starch, leaving the sauce grainy. Letting it boil afterward fully thickens the starch.

“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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