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Lobster, Scalloped

Lobster, Scalloped is lobster meat cooked in butter, salt, pepper, mace, anchovy sauce, white sauce, lemon juice, beaten egg yolks, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster, Scalloped

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Divide the lobster shell in half without damaging it and remove the meat, cutting it into small dice.

Make the filling

  1. Pound the spice and coral with butter, salt, pepper, mace, anchovy sauce, white sauce, and lemon juice in a mortar.

  2. Gently heat the mixture over the fire for 10 minutes, then add the lobster meat and beaten egg yolks.

  3. When hot, pour the mixture into the lobster shell halves, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and brown under a salamander.

Serve

  1. Serve on a folded napkin and garnish with parsley.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the filling and enrich it, helping it set lightly when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps it brown on top.
White sauce
Adds body and moisture, giving the filling a creamy, cohesive texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when browned under the salamander.
Lobster
Provides the main meat and flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture gently before adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken and scramble at high heat. Heating the base gently, then adding the yolks once it is hot, keeps the filling smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, pepper, anchovy, sauce, lemon, 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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