Skip to main content
Main

To Pot Lobsters

A baked lobster dish where lobster meat is seasoned, covered in butter, and cooked in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pot Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Half boil the lobsters.

  2. Remove the meat and cut it into small bits.

  3. Season the meat with mace, white pepper, nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Press the seasoned meat into a pot.

  5. Cover the pot with butter.

Bake and set

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. When cool, transfer the lobster to pots with some of the butter.

Finish with butter

  1. Beat additional butter with some of the lobster spawn.

  2. Mix to cover the pots.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Pour over the lobster in the pots.

  5. If desired, add cayenne pepper for extra flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Lobsters
Provide the main meat that is seasoned, pressed, and baked into the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and forms a protective layer over the lobster while it bakes.
Lobster spawn
Adds concentrated lobster flavor and color to the butter topping.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that complements the lobster.

The step that matters

Half boil the lobsters. Boiling only partly cooks the lobster so it is not overcooked when it bakes later. Fully cooking it first would leave the meat dry and tough after the long oven time.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, mace, nutmeg, butter, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, mace, nutmeg, butter, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes