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Lobster Farci

A stuffed lobster filled with a creamy mixture of onions, butter, flour, cream, bread crumbs, lobster meat, lemon juice, parsley, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster 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 ↓

Lobster Farci

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the chopped onions in butter for 3 minutes.

  2. Add flour, salt, pepper, mace, and cream.

  3. Stir until thickened.

  4. Mix in bread crumbs and lobster meat.

  5. Cook briefly.

  6. Stir in lemon juice, parsley, and beaten egg yolk.

Fill and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture into a cleaned lobster shell.

  2. Cover with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce base and adds richness and a rounded flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a stable sauce that holds the lobster together.
Cream
Forms the moist, smooth body of the filling.
Lobster meat
Provides the main flavor and the chunky texture of the filling.
Egg yolk
Sets during cooking and binds the filling so it holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid to give body to the filling and form a browned topping.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolk after the mixture has cooled slightly. Egg yolk sets when heated, so adding it to a very hot mixture can scramble it. Stirring it in off the heat, or after the mixture has cooled a little, lets it bind the filling smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, pepper, cream, bread, lobster):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, pepper, cream, bread, lobster. 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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