Skip to main content
Main

Potted Lobster

A lobster dish preserved in clarified butter and seasonings, baked and served cold or warmed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potted Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Melt fine butter in a pan and layer the lobsters with bay leaves in between.

  3. Cover the lobsters with more butter and bake gently until done.

Pot and seal

  1. Remove from the oven and place the mixture on a sieve.

  2. Use a fork to transfer pieces into potting pots, adding seasoning.

  3. Once cooled, pour clarified butter over the top, but do not use hot butter.

Serve

  1. For serving, potted lobster can be used cold or warmed with a cream sauce.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 potted mixture.
Fine butter
Cooks the lobster gently and carries its flavour, leaving the meat moist and rich.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealing layer over the potted lobster, excluding air to protect it.
Flour
Thickens the gravy or sauce so it binds the lobster mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the clarified butter on cooled lobster. Hot butter poured over the mixture can cook the surface further and warm the contents, affecting texture; letting the potted lobster cool first keeps the seal clean and the meat firm.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, sauce, port wine, pepper, flour. 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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes