Skip to main content
Main

Lobsters, Fricasseed, or an Bechamel

A lobster fricassee prepared with béchamel sauce, lemon, and seasoned with mace and cayenne, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobsters, Fricasseed, or an Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the flesh from the claws and tails of the lobsters and cut it into small scallops or dice.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the lobster flesh slowly in the white sauce or béchamel until just boiling.

  2. Stir in lemon juice and the pounded coral just before removing from heat.

  3. Mix beef stock with cream and thicken with arrow-root for a richer sauce.

  4. Ensure the sauce is thick enough to just cover the fish.

Fill and brown

  1. Place the heated lobster evenly into cleaned shells.

  2. Cover the lobster with fine bread crumbs moistened with clarified butter.

  3. Brown the topping with a salamander or under a broiler.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main flesh and sweet meat that forms the body of the dish.
White sauce or béchamel
Forms a creamy binding that holds the lobster pieces together and coats them.
Coral from lobsters
Adds colour and a rich, concentrated lobster flavour to the sauce.
Arrow-root
Thickens the stock and cream mixture so the sauce clings to the fish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns under the heat.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumbs brown evenly and taste rich.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce to just cover the fish. If the sauce is too thin it runs off the lobster and pools in the shells, while too much thickener makes it gluey. Heating the lobster gently until just boiling keeps the delicate flesh tender and prevents it from toughening.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, lemon, beef, cream, butter, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, lemon, beef, cream, butter, bread. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes