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Lobster, Miroton of

A boiled lobster mixture with ham-lined mold, seasoned with pepper, salt, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster, Miroton of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the crumb of the penny roll in enough cream to cover it until soft.

  2. Remove the meat from the lobster and pound it with the spawn in a mortar.

  3. Mix the pounded lobster with the soaked crumb and the egg yolks.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, and pounded mace.

Cook and serve

  1. Line a round mold with slices of ham.

  2. Just before boiling, add the whisked whole egg to the mixture.

  3. Pour the lobster mixture into the mold and boil for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

  4. Serve with lobster sauce.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Lobster + hamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provides the main flavour and the body of the mixture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Whole egg
Adds further binding so the mixture holds together when boiled.
Penny roll crumb
Soaked in cream, it gives a soft, tender body to the mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft.

The step that matters

Adding the whole egg just before boiling. Eggs set when heated, so adding the whisked whole egg at the last moment, rather than earlier, keeps the mixture smooth and evenly bound. Adding it too early or boiling too hard can make the custard-like mixture curdle or turn grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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