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Lobster Patties

A pastry-wrapped lobster filling baked and served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut patties from the puff pastry and bake for 10 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Break the lobster into small pieces.

  2. Mix the lobster with the white sauce, cream, lemon juice, cayenne, and salt.

  3. Heat the mixture over low heat until thoroughly hot.

Fill and serve

  1. Remove the centers from the baked patties, fill them with the lobster mixture, and replace the tops.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp shell that holds the filling.
Lobster
Provides the main filling and its delicate sweet flavor.
White sauce
Binds the lobster pieces together and keeps the filling moist.
Thick cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the filling.

The step that matters

Heat the filling gently. Heating over low heat warms the lobster through without toughening its protein, which can happen with rapid high heat and leave the meat rubbery.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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