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Lobster Care

A baked lobster meat cake made with boiled lobster, ham, beef marrow, egg yolks, bread, spices, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Care

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 mixture

  1. Pound the meat of the boiled lobsters with raw ham, beef marrow, egg yolks, soaked bread, beaten mace, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Color the mixture with lobster spawn.

Bake

  1. Line a mold with thin slices of fat bacon.

  2. Press the mixture into the mold.

  3. Cover the mixture with bacon slices.

  4. Cover the mold.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Let it cool.

  2. Turn it out of the mold.

  3. Remove the fat.

  4. Serve the cake plain.

  5. Model with savory jelly around it.

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 + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat of 2 boiled lobsters
Forms the main body and flavor of the cake.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly when baked.
Lean of raw ham
Adds savory depth and a firmer, meatier texture.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
1 slice of bread soaked in cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the cake tender.
Lobster spawn from boiled lobsters
Colors the mixture and adds concentrated lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours. Egg yolks set as they heat, so the cake must bake long enough to firm through, but not so long or hot that it becomes dry and crumbly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, ham, beef, egg, bread, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, ham, beef, egg, bread, cream. 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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