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Lobster Patties

Lobster patties are puff pastry cases filled with lobster and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Lobster Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ½ inch thick and cut out 8 or 9 rounds using a 2-inch cutter.

  2. Brush the rounds with a beaten egg and create an inner ring with a 1-inch cutter dipped in hot water.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes, then remove and keep the tops warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and cook for a few minutes.

  2. Pour in the fish stock or milk and stir until the sauce boils, then simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the cream, egg yolks, lemon juice, anchovy essence, and season to taste, simmering gently until thickened.

  4. Strain the sauce through a cloth or fine sieve, then return to the saucepan.

Fill and serve

  1. Add the lobster (cut into dice) and heat through, then fill the pastry cases and replace the tops.

  2. Garnish with parsley 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. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, layered cases that hold the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour in the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as it simmers gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Lobster
Provides the main flavour and texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce gently after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce must be kept at a low simmer until thickened.

“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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