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Dessert

Fifty Lunch Fs

A chilled dessert of cherry gelatine and whipped cream served with a lobster custard and curry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,523 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fifty Lunch Fs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cherry cream

  1. In a bowl, mix yolks of eggs with soaked gelatine and lemon flavouring until smooth.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  3. Whip and fold in whipped cream.

  4. In a pint and a half mould on ice, arrange a pattern of preserved cherries at the bottom.

  5. Layer the cherry mixture with cream until the mould is filled.

  6. Keep the mould on ice.

  7. Turn out the mould.

  8. Pour over syrup flavoured with maraschino and lemon juice.

Line and fill the darioles

  1. Line nine buttered darioles with cold parboiled spaghetti, arranging it in a coil at the bottom and rings around the sides.

  2. Mix chopped lobster with savoury custard, curry powder, and cream.

  3. Fill the moulds with the lobster mixture and steam gently until set.

Make the savoury sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pan. Stir in minced shallot and fry until coloured.

  2. Add curry powder and rice flour, fry for five minutes. Moisten with milk.

  3. Season with salt and grated ginger. Bring to a boil. Strain.

  4. Add cream and lemon juice.

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. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Yolks of eggs
Set the cream custard and add richness and a smooth, firm texture.
Soaked gelatine
Provides the setting structure so the layered mould holds its shape when turned out.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and moisture to the mould, giving a softer, airy texture.
Lobster
Forms the main savoury filling and its delicate flavour, bound by the custard.
Savoury custard
Binds the chopped lobster and sets it into a tender, sliceable filling.
Rice flour
Thickens the curry sauce so it becomes smooth and coats the spoon.

The step that matters

Steam the lobster darioles gently until set. High heat or boiling makes egg-based custards curdle and turn grainy, so gentle steaming sets them smoothly and evenly.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, cream, syrup, lobster, butter, rice):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, cream, syrup, lobster, butter, rice. 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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