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Potted Lobster or Crab

A preserved lobster or crab made into a paste and stored in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted Lobster or Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters thoroughly until cooked.

  2. Once cold, remove all solid meat from the lobsters.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar, gradually adding finely pounded mace, pepper, salt, and a little butter until the mixture reaches a paste-like consistency.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the mixture firmly into a preserving pot.

  2. Pour clarified butter over the top and cover with wetted bladder.

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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lobster + macetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together596 recipes

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 meat
Provides the main body and flavour of the potted paste.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the paste hold together and spread smoothly.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed layer over the top that keeps air out and helps preserve the potted mixture.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture firmly into the pot. Packing out air pockets reduces contact with oxygen and leaves no gaps where spoilage can start, so the clarified butter seal can work properly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, butter. 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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