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Cray Fish Pudding

A steamed pudding made from crayfish, butter, anchovies, lobster spawn, bread crumbs, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cray Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the crayfish with salt and vinegar.

  2. Pick the meat from the crayfish and place it in a mortar.

  3. Add butter, anchovies, and lobster spawn; pound well.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in cream and add to the fish mixture.

  2. Break in one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pot of boiling water, ensuring water comes halfway up the mold.

  2. Cover the pot and place hot charcoal on the lid; avoid boiling too fast.

  3. Steam for about 1 hour until set.

  4. Remove the mold a few minutes before serving to allow it to settle.

  5. Serve with red Italian sauce around the dish, but not on the pudding.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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. Crayfish + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 pudding when steamed.
Crayfish
Provide the main fish flavour and the bulk of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the fish mixture.
Cream
Moistens the bread crumbs and keeps the pudding soft and delicate.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the cream and lighten the mixture, giving body to the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam over gentle heat. If the water boils too fast, the egg-based custard will bubble and set unevenly, leaving a rough, holey texture. Gentle, steady steam sets the eggs slowly and evenly.

“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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