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Savoury Lobster Cream

A chilled lobster cream made with cooked lobster, cream, aspic, tomato pulp, mayonnaise, gelatin, and seasonings, served in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Savoury Lobster Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a border mold thinly with aspic and decorate with claw pieces of lobster and truffle.

  2. Chop and pound the lobster.

  3. Whip the cream lightly.

Make and set the cream

  1. Mix all ingredients together, adding the dissolved gelatine last. Add coloring if desired.

  2. Mold when the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Turn out when set.

Decorate and serve

  1. Decorate with mayonnaise, salad, lobster feelers, and chopped aspic jelly.

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

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Tomato + truffletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavor and firm, flaky texture of the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, light body to the mixture.
Aspic
Sets the mixture and forms the decorative border around the mold.
Gelatine
Helps the mixture set firm so it holds its molded shape.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and color, balancing the richness of the cream.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and a creamy, tangy note to the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved gelatine last. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so it must be added to the mixture while still liquid and combined quickly. If it cools or is added too early, it can set in lumps or fail to blend evenly, and molding must happen while the mixture is still thickening rather than fully set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, cream, pepper, lemon, truffle. 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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