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Lobster in Aspic

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

  1. Melt enough aspic jelly to thinly cover the bottom of a quart border mold.

  2. When it begins to set, arrange the lobster flesh (cut into neat pieces), tarragon leaves, and capers in the jelly.

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

  4. Wash, dry, and shred the lettuce, then mix it with the remaining lobster, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

  5. Once the mold is set, turn it out onto a plate and pile the salad in the center, creating a border around it.

  6. Mask the salad smoothly with a thick layer of Mayonnaise sauce.

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

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.

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