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Lobster Patties

A patty made from boiled lobster meat mixed with butter, cream, veal consommé, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the tail and claws of the lobster and chop it finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster meat, pounded spawn, butter, cream, veal consommé, cayenne pepper, salt, essence of anchovy, lemon juice, and flour mixed with water.

  2. Stir the mixture and stew for five minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the tender meat that forms the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, helping the filling stay soft and spreadable.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the filling holds together rather than running.
Veal consommé
Contributes savoury depth and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stewing the filling. Flour mixed with water must be fully combined and cooked through during stewing; otherwise it can leave a raw, pasty taste and uneven thickening. Stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents scorching on the base of the pan.

“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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