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Potted Lobster

A preserved lobster dish made by simmering lobster meat with spices, lemon, ham essence, anchovy liquor, and butter, then cooled in preserving pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobsters

  1. Boil the lobsters in salted water until half cooked.

  2. Remove the meat and spawn from the shells and place in a stew-pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add mace, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, salt, lemon juice, essence of ham, and anchovy liquor.

  2. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar and reduce the liquid to a glaze.

  4. Combine the glaze with the lobster meat and add fresh butter.

  5. Mix well and press into small flat preserving pots.

Pot and store

  1. Cover with clarified butter and let cool.

  2. Seal with white paper and store in a dry place.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provides the main body of meat that forms the potted filling.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the potted lobster a smooth, spreadable texture.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed top layer that keeps air out of the pots.
Anchovy liquor
Adds savoury depth and salty umami flavour to the lobster.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster and butter.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid to a glaze. If the liquid is not reduced enough, the mixture stays wet and will not bind into a firm, spreadable filling. Reducing concentrates the seasonings and flavour before the butter is added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, clove, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, ham, anchovy):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, clove, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, ham, anchovy. 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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