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A Lobster Pie

A baked pastry dish filled with boiled lobster, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

A Lobster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and remove the meat from the tails, cutting it into four long pieces.

  2. Remove the spawn and meat from the claws and beat it well in a mortar.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, vinegar, and anchovy liquor.

  4. Melt the butter and stir it into the lobster mixture along with the roll crumbs and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the puff pastry and place it over your dish.

  2. Lay the lobster tails and the rest of the meat on top, then cover with more pastry.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, which forms the filling of the pie.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling stay tender and rich.
Roll crumbs
Soak up liquid and help bind the lobster mixture together.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set when baked, giving it a smooth, firm texture.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until golden. The oven must stay slow, as the record states, so the egg yolks set gently without curdling or drying out while the pastry browns.

“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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