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Fricasseed Lobster

A lobster fricassee made by boiling lobster, seasoning, cooking in cream, and finishing with beaten egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 ↓

Fricasseed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster in salted water for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on its size.

  2. Remove the lobster from the shell and cut the meat into small pieces.

  3. Season the lobster meat with red pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

Make the fricassee

  1. Place the seasoned lobster in a stew pan and cover it with cream.

  2. Cover the pan and cook it slowly over hot coals for the same amount of time it was boiled.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolk.

Serve

  1. Serve in a small dish on a larger one, arranging the small claws around it.

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

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

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 meat, which turns tender and firm when gently cooked.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, coating the lobster as it cooks slowly.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream into a silky sauce when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Cooking the lobster slowly in the covered pan. Gentle, covered heat keeps the lobster meat tender and prevents the cream from boiling and separating. Cooking too hot can make the lobster tough and rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, cream, 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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