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To Fricassee Lobster

A lobster fricassee made with white stock, flour, butter, spices, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

To Fricassee Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Break the lobster shells and carefully remove the meat.

  2. Cut the lobster meat and coral into pieces, adding the spawn.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the white stock, stirring until thickened.

  3. Season with white pepper, mace, and coarse sea salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster pieces and heat through.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice or lemon pickle.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor into the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that becomes the sauce.
Lemon juice or lemon pickle
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the white stock to the roux. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour swell evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, properly thickened sauce.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, flour, butter, mace, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, flour, butter, mace, lemon. 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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