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Crayfish Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from boiled crayfish, butter, anchovies, lobster spawn, eggs, and soaked French roll crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Crayfish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crayfish

  1. Boil the crayfish with a little salt and vinegar.

  2. Pick the meat from the tails and claws.

Make the mixture

  1. In a mortar, combine the crayfish meat, butter, anchovies, and lobster spawn; pound and rub through a fine sieve.

  2. In a basin, add one egg at a time, mixing well before adding the next.

  3. Incorporate the soaked French roll crumbs and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Butter a mold with clarified butter and fill it with the crayfish mixture.

  2. Place the mold in a saucepan of boiling water.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Crayfish + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the mixture.
Crayfish
Provides the main meaty flavour and body of the pudding.
French roll crumbs soaked in cream
Add moisture and softness, keeping the pudding tender rather than dense.
Anchovies
Add a savoury, salty depth that enriches the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before the next keeps the mixture smooth and evenly emulsified, so it sets uniformly rather than curdling or separating.

“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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