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Lobster Patties

A savory dish of minced lobster mixed with seasonings, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the tail and claws of the lobster and mince it finely.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the minced lobster, lobster spawn, butter, cream, veal jelly, essence of anchovies, lemon rind, salt, pepper, mace, and cayenne. Stir the mixture over low heat for a few minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry and place a crust of bread in each to maintain shape.

  2. Cover with pastry, decorate edges with a knife, and brush with egg yolk.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Remove the bread, fill the patties with the hot mixture, replace the covers, and serve immediately.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 meaty filling and its sweet, delicate flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps it stay tender.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, soft texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, layered layers that form the patty's crisp outer shell.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it promotes golden browning during baking.
Lobster spawn
Adds concentrated shellfish flavour and colour to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking the pastry shells. Puff pastry relies on layers of butter turning to steam to rise. If the oven is not hot enough when the patties go in, the butter melts out before the pastry sets, leaving them flat and greasy rather than flaky.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, cream, veal, lemon, pepper, 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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