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Lobster in Aspic

A chilled lobster dish set in aspic with a lettuce salad and mayonnaise topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Set the aspic

  1. Melt enough aspic jelly to thinly coat a small mold and pour it in.

  2. Neatly arrange the lobster flesh and claws, cut into pieces, along with tarragon leaves and capers in the mold.

  3. Fill the mold with the remaining aspic jelly and let it set.

Make the salad

  1. Wash, dry, and shred the lettuce.

  2. Mix the shredded lettuce with the remaining lobster, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Once the mold is set, turn it out onto a plate.

  2. Place the salad in the center, creating a border around it.

  3. Smoothly mask the salad with a thick layer of mayonnaise sauce.

  4. Garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs, lobster coral, claws, capers, and truffles.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main seafood flesh and texture in both the aspic and the salad.
Aspic jelly
Gelatin that sets clear and firm, holding the lobster and garnish in shape.
Lettuce
Adds crisp, fresh texture to the salad centre.
Oil
Carries flavour and gives the salad dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the lobster and balances the richness of the dressing.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess, forming a smooth, rich coating over the salad.

The step that matters

Let the aspic set fully before unmolding. Aspic is gelatin, which firms only when cold and fully set. If a layer is still soft, the next layer will mix into it and the mold will not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, tarragon, capers, olive, truffle, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, tarragon, capers, olive, truffle, vinegar. 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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