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Timbales d’CEufs a LA Cardinal

A French dish of egg timbales filled with lobster mousse and aspic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Timbales d’CEufs a LA Cardinal

Ingredients

Directions

Line the molds

  1. Line eight small timbale molds with aspic jelly and let them set.

  2. Pour a thin layer of tomato cream stiffened with aspic into the bottom of each mold.

  3. Cut the egg whites into ¼‑inch thick slices and arrange them in the molds with alternate layers of aspic.

Make the lobster mousse

  1. Pound the lobster in a mortar, heat the spawn with the butter, and mix with the lobster. Let it cool slightly.

  2. Rub the lobster mixture through a sieve, add the mayonnaise, anchovy essence, and enough aspic to stiffen it when cold.

Fill and serve

  1. Remove the aspic from the center of each mold and fill the cavities with the lobster mousse.

  2. Place the molds on ice to set, then turn them out onto a flat dish, garnish, and serve.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Egg whites form the sliced structure layered inside the molds.
Lobster
Provides the main flavor and the body of the mousse filling.
Butter
Enriches the spawn and lobster mixture, adding richness and smooth texture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess so the mousse sets soft yet holds its shape.
Aspic
Gelatin-based jelly that sets the molds and stiffens the mousse and tomato layer.

The step that matters

Rub the lobster mixture through a sieve, then stiffen it with aspic. Sieving breaks down fibres for a smooth mousse, and the aspic must be measured so the mixture sets firm when cold but stays soft enough to pipe and unmold cleanly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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