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Lobster Pie

A pie filled with lobster meat, butter, bread crumbs, and a lobster broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Lobster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the tails and claws of the lobsters and cut it into pieces.

  2. Season the lobster meat with pepper, mace, nutmeg, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the seasoned lobster pieces in a dish.

Make the topping

  1. Pound the soft meat of the lobster body and the spawn in a mortar with the butter, bread crumbs, and a little seasoning until smooth.

  2. Spread the lobster mixture on top of the meat in the dish.

Add the stock and bake

  1. Boil the lobster shells in 1 pint of water for 20 minutes, then strain the liquid and add it to the dish.

  2. Cover the dish with a pie crust.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace 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 that forms the body of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the lobster mixture moist and smooth.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the lobster mixture so it spreads evenly.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and forms a golden, crisp top during baking.

The step that matters

Pounding the lobster body and spawn with butter and bread crumbs until smooth. Pounding breaks down the soft meat and fat into a uniform paste, so the topping spreads evenly and bakes into a smooth layer rather than dry, uneven clumps.

Swap the mace

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

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

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