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Fricasseed Lobster

A lobster fricassee made with lobster meat, chicken broth, butter, nutmeg, salt, and hot milk, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricasseed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Cut the lobster meat into pieces.

  2. Cook the lobster in chicken broth as you would for fricassee chicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter and flavor with nutmeg, seasoning to taste.

  2. Thicken the mixture, and if it's not light enough, add hot milk.

  3. Serve the fricassee lobster on toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the dish and gives its sweet, delicate flavour.
Chicken broth
Cooks the lobster gently and supplies savoury liquid that becomes the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Hot milk
Lightens the thickened mixture and adds creaminess when it is too thick.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture. Thickening relies on starch or reduction to bind the liquid. Adding hot milk too early or too much can thin the sauce, while adding it cold can cause it to curdle or stall, so the consistency should be checked gradually.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, chicken, butter, milk):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, chicken, butter, milk. 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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