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Lobster Patties

A baked dish of lobster flesh mixed with spices, cream, egg, and wrapped in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster tail flesh into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the lobster, nutmeg, black pepper, anchovy butter or essence, cream, and beaten egg yolk.

  3. Warm the mixture until it reaches the right consistency.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry and fill them with the lobster mixture.

  2. Cover with more puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster tail flesh
Provides the main filling and rich seafood flavor.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling stay soft and smooth.
Beaten egg yolk
Thickens the filling as it warms, giving it a set, custard-like body.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Anchovy butter or essence of anchovy
Adds a savoury, salty depth that enhances the seafood flavor.

The step that matters

Warming the filling. The egg yolk thickens the cream as it heats, but if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Warming gently until just thickened gives a smooth, cohesive filling.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, anchovy, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, anchovy, cream, egg. 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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