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Potted Lobster

A lobster cooked in butter, spices, and clarified butter, then cooled and stored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the gut from the lobster and check the inside for quality.

  2. Season the lobster with mace, nutmeg, white pepper, salt, and finely powdered cloves.

Layer and bake

  1. Place a little butter at the bottom of a pan.

  2. Lay the lobster on top, adding bay leaves between layers.

  3. Cover the lobster with more butter.

  4. Bake gently until done.

  5. Pour the contents onto a sieve.

Pot and store

  1. Use a fork to transfer pieces into potting pots, adding seasoning.

  2. Once cooled, pour clarified butter over the lobster, making sure the clarified butter is not hot.

  3. Store in a cool place.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the lobster as it cooks.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealing layer that keeps air out of the potted lobster.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the lobster.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma that complements the lobster.
Cloves
Adds a strong, sweet aroma when used in small amounts.

The step that matters

Bake gently until done. Lobster proteins tighten and squeeze out moisture when overheated, so a gentle heat keeps the meat tender and juicy rather than tough and dry.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, mace, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, mace, nutmeg, clove. 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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