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To Pot Lobsters

A dish of lobster meat cooked in butter with mace, white pepper, nutmeg, salt, and optional cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Pot Lobsters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Half boil the lobsters, then remove the meat and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Season the meat with mace, white pepper, nutmeg, and salt.

Bake and set

  1. Press the seasoned meat into a pot and cover it with butter.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the lobster spawn to the pot.

  4. Once cooled, remove the lobster from the pot and place it back in with some of the butter.

Make the spawn butter

  1. In a mortar, beat the remaining butter with some of the spawn.

  2. Mix the colored butter with enough to cover the pots, then strain it.

  3. Add Cayenne pepper if desired.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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 sweet, delicate flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the top of the pots during baking.
Lobster spawn
Adds a rich, concentrated seafood flavor and colors the butter.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that complements the lobster.

The step that matters

Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes. Baking gently sets the seasoned meat in its butter without drying it out. Overbaking toughens lobster protein, so timing matters for a tender texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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