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Lobster Mayonnaise with Aspic Jelly

A chilled lobster dish served in aspic jelly and topped with mayonnaise, herbs, olives, anchovies, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lobster Mayonnaise with Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and cut the back into neat pieces.

  2. Leave the claws whole or cut them as preferred.

  3. Place the pieces on a dish.

  4. Sprinkle half with chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil, and the other half with lobster coral.

Set the aspic and arrange

  1. Lightly cover the pieces with liquid aspic jelly.

  2. Once set, arrange the pieces alternately on a border of aspic jelly.

  3. Tastefully arrange fresh crisp lettuce, tarragon, chervil, French capers, turned olives, filleted anchovies, and quarters of hard-boiled eggs on the dish.

  4. Garnish the whole with thick, smooth mayonnaise sauce.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the savoury meat being presented.
Liquid aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gel that coats and holds the lobster pieces in place.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, creamy texture and rich flavour as a contrasting element on the dish.
Thick mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and creamy moisture as the finishing garnish over the dish.

The step that matters

Covering the pieces with aspic jelly. The aspic must be liquid enough to coat thinly but fully set before arranging; if it is too warm or applied too thickly, it will not hold a smooth, even glaze and the pieces can slip or cloud.

“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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