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To Pot Lobster

A lobster cooked in salted water, beaten, seasoned, and baked with butter and bay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster in salted water, inserting a skewer in the vent to prevent water ingress.

  2. Once cold, remove the meat and finely beat it in a mortar.

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

Make the butter mixture

  1. Melt some butter and mix the melted butter with the lobster meat.

  2. Press the mixture into a pot.

  3. Cover the pot with clarified butter.

  4. Alternatively, keep the lobster meat whole and season it similarly.

Layer and bake

  1. Place butter at the bottom of a pan.

  2. Layer the lobster with bay leaves.

  3. Cover with more butter.

  4. Bake gently until done.

  5. Strain the contents.

  6. Place the pieces in pots with seasoning.

  7. Once cooled, pour clarified butter over the lobster.

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat that sets into a firm, tender texture when packed and cooled.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the lobster from air in the pot.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the lobster.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic sweetness that rounds out the seasoning.
Bay leaves
Adds a subtle herbal aroma that infuses the butter and lobster.

The step that matters

Remove the lobster meat only once it is fully cold. Pulling the meat while still warm can leave it wet and loose. Letting it cool firms the proteins so it beats smoothly and holds its texture when packed.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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