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Crab or Lobster, Potted

A dish of crab or lobster meat cooked with butter, cream, and egg yolks, then pressed into pots and cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crab or Lobster, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Remove the meat from the shells and chop it finely.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped meat, butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the cream and egg yolks, stirring well.

  4. Cook gently until the mixture thickens to a paste consistency.

  5. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Pot and set

  1. Press into pots and let cool.

  2. Once cool, cover with clarified butter.

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

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

  2. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab or lobster
Provides the main body of the potted filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mixture a smooth, spreadable texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they gently cook, giving it a paste-like set.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the paste stay smooth.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture gently after adding the cream and egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, so cooking too hard or too fast can curdle the mixture and make it grainy. Slow, gentle heat lets the yolks thicken it smoothly into a paste.

“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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