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Lobster a LA Creme

A lobster dish mixed with white sauce, aspic jelly, mayonnaise, and seasonings, then steamed and served with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lobster a LA Creme

Oven, in the book's wordsThe hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the lobster meat and place it in a basin.

  2. Add white sauce, aspic jelly, mayonnaise, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Steam the mixture in a saucepan of boiling water until hot.

  2. Serve in ramekin cases and sprinkle browned breadcrumbs on top.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  4. Meat + nutmegtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,656 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavour.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess so the mixture stays soft and cohesive.
Aspic jelly
Sets when cooled and gives the mixture a firmer, more cohesive texture.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a smooth, moist texture.

The step that matters

Steaming until hot. Steam gently and only until the mixture is hot. Overheating can cause the lobster meat to toughen and the emulsified sauces to separate, leaving a grainy or oily texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, sauce, pepper. 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.

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