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Lobster Fricassee

A lobster dish with white sauce, lemon juice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Lobster Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the tail and claws of the lobster and cut it into small squares.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat with ½ pint of good white sauce.

  2. Pound the coral and mix it smoothly with the sauce.

  3. Season with ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, ¼ teaspoon of white pepper, and ¼ teaspoon of pounded mace.

  4. Heat the mixture until just before boiling, then remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Stir in 1 tablespoon of strained lemon juice.

Make the white sauce

  1. To make the white sauce, combine ¼ pint of beef stock and ¼ pint of cream, thickening with a little arrowroot, or boil the lobster shell in ½ pint of water and cream, adding flavoring and thickening.

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

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

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, providing the chunky texture and savory flavor.
White sauce
Provides creamy moisture that binds the lobster pieces into a smooth fricassee.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a glossy sauce without making it cloudy.
Lobster coral
Adds a rich, concentrated seafood flavor and a deep color to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat until just before boiling, then cool slightly. Boiling a cream and starch sauce can break the emulsion and make it grainy or thin, so gentle heating and a short rest keep it smooth. Lemon juice is added afterward because acid can curdle dairy when hot.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, sauce, white pepper, mace, beef, cream. 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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