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Lobster Patties

A patty made from boiled lobster meat mixed with seasonings, flour, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, salt, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar, and sherry.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat until hot.

  3. Dredge lightly with flour to thicken.

  4. Add the butter and cream, then cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Fill patty shells with the mixture and serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as it heats with the liquids.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Cream
Adds body and richness, and helps the filling become thick and smooth.
Sherry
Adds a mild acidic, aromatic note that complements the seafood.

The step that matters

Dredge lightly with flour to thicken. Flour must be added in a light, even dusting and heated so its starch swells and thickens the liquid. Adding too much flour, or adding it without enough heat, can leave the filling pasty or lumpy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, pepper, vinegar, sherry, flour, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, pepper, vinegar, sherry, flour, butter. 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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