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To Pot Lobster

A lobster paste made by boiling lobsters, mixing meat with spawn, coral, spices, and butter, then pressing into pots and topping with 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 nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pot Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and remove all the meat.

  2. Chop the spawn and red coral from the lobster's head.

Make the paste

  1. Combine the lobster meat, spawn, and coral in a marble mortar.

  2. Add warmed butter, mace, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt.

  3. Pound the mixture to a fine paste.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the mixture into potting pots.

  2. Pour clarified butter over the top.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

Lobsters
Provide the main meat and the spawn and coral that add flavour and colour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the paste.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the rich lobster flavour.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture to a fine paste. Pounding breaks the lobster meat and fat into fine, even particles, so the paste spreads smoothly instead of staying stringy or grainy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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