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A Lobster Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled lobster, butter, anchovy liquor, and puff pastry.

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 ↓

A Lobster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and remove the meat from the tails, cutting it into four long pieces.

  2. Remove all the spawn and meat from the claws and beat it well in a mortar.

Make the filling

  1. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, vinegar, and anchovy liquor.

  2. Melt the butter and stir it into the lobster mixture along with the roll crumbs and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a puff pastry over a dish, lay in the lobster tails, and top with the remaining meat.

  2. Cover with pastry and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 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

Lobsters
Provide the main body of the pie, with tail meat for texture and claw meat and spawn for richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the filling a smooth, soft texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set into a sliceable mixture when baked.
Roll crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling so it holds together rather than running out.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven until golden. Egg yolks set at moderate heat, so a cool oven lets the filling firm gently without curdling or drying out, while the pastry still browns.

“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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