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Another Lobster Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled lobster meat, oysters, and a buttery gravy, encased in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Lobster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters.

  2. Cut the tail meat into four pieces.

  3. Remove the meat from the claws and bodies.

  4. Pound the meat in a mortar.

  5. Add the soft part of one lobster.

  6. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  7. Mix in vinegar.

  8. Melt the butter.

  9. Combine the butter with the pounded meat and grated bread.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the edge and sides of a dish with puff pastry.

  2. Place the lobster tail pieces in the dish.

  3. Place a layer of oysters with their liquor.

  4. Place the pounded meat.

  5. Cover with puff pastry.

  6. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry is done.

Make the gravy

  1. Make gravy by boiling weak stock with lobster shells, onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  4. Pour the gravy over the pie before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Lobster + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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, which gives the pie its flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the filling feel smooth.
Bread
Grated bread soaks up liquid and helps bind the pounded meat into a cohesive filling.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour along with their liquor to moisten the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until the pastry is done. Puff pastry relies on layers of fat and steam to rise and turn crisp and golden. Underbaking leaves it pale and doughy, while the filling needs enough heat to cook through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, vinegar, butter, bread, oyster, onion. 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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