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A Lobster Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled lobster, butter, breadcrumbs, and egg yolks, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

A Lobster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters and remove the meat from the tails, cutting it into four long pieces.

  2. Extract the spawn and meat from the claws and heat in a mortar.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, vinegar, and anchovy liquor.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter and stir it with the lobster mixture, roll crumbs, and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a fine puff pastry over a dish, add the lobster mixture, and cover with more pastry.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 filling of the pie.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and add richness so it holds together when baked.
Roll crumbs
Absorb butter and juices, giving the filling body and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until golden. A slow oven cooks the egg yolk-bound filling gently so it sets without curdling or drying out, while the pastry browns slowly and evenly.

“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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