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Homard En Aspic

A chilled dish of lobster slices set in clear aspic with egg whites and salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Homard En Aspic

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Dip the lobster slices into the white sauce and set aside until cold.

Build the aspic

  1. In a flat cylinder mold, add a little clear aspic jelly.

  2. Decorate with the whites of hard-boiled eggs cut into shapes like diamonds and leaves.

  3. Cover with more jelly and let it set.

  4. Layer the lobster slices slanting in the mold and fill with aspic.

  5. Place the mold on ice until firm.

Unmould and serve

  1. Dip the mold in warm water and turn the aspic out onto your dish.

  2. Fill the center with finely cut salad and top with more lobster.

  3. Drizzle with mayonnaise sauce, ensuring it doesn't run over the aspic.

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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sauce + eggtop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Sauce and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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 filling and provides the flesh that the aspic sets around.
Clear aspic jelly
Sets into a firm, clear gel that holds the layers together and can be unmoulded.
White sauce
Coats the lobster slices, giving them a creamy layer that adds richness and flavour.
Whites of hard-boiled eggs
Provide firm, mild decoration cut into shapes set within the clear jelly.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and a creamy, fatty finish on top of the dish.

The step that matters

Turn the aspic out onto your dish. Warm water loosens the gel at the mold edges so it releases cleanly. Too much heat melts the surface and blurs the set layers, while too little leaves it stuck.

“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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