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 Mould
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pound the contents of a tin of lobsters.
Mix with bread crumbs, herbs, butter, lemon rind, nutmeg, Nepaul pepper, and salt.
Beat the eggs and mix them into the lobster mixture.
Bake and serve
Put the mixture in a buttered mold and bake until set.
Turn out onto a paper and garnish with parsley and slices of lemon and tomato.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable mould when baked.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and give the mould a soft, light body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Lobsters
- Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the mould.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate with heat, so the mould firms up only when fully cooked. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery.
“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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