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Lobster Pudding

A custard-like dish made with lobster meat, eggs, cream, and seasonings, baked in a mold and served with butter and roe.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lobster Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Remove the large pieces from the claws and arrange them nicely in a well-buttered mold.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Chop the remaining lobster meat finely and mix it with the egg whites, egg yolks, cream, and seasonings.

  2. Add the mixture to the pieces in the mold and press it down well.

  3. Cover the mold and place it in a pan of hot water on the stove for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto a serving plate and serve with melted butter mixed with the lobster roe.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat, forming the bulk and flavour of the pudding.
Egg whites
Set and give the pudding a light, firm structure when heated.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard, adding richness and helping it set smoothly.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Cooking the mold in gently hot water. Eggs set when heated, so the pudding must cook gently in a water bath. Too much heat can cause the eggs to curdle and turn grainy and watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter. 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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