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Lobster Timbals

A baked fish and lobster timbal made with bread, eggs, cream, butter, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Timbals

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Soak stale bread in water until soft, then squeeze out all the water.

  2. Cook the bread with 1 teaspoon of butter, beating until it reaches a rubbery consistency, then cool.

  3. Process the halibut or cod through a meat chopper, then pound in a mortar.

  4. Gradually add ⅓ cup of the bread, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk, and 4 tablespoons of cream; beat well.

  5. Butter timbal molds and spread the bread mixture on the sides and bottom.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, sauté ½ tablespoon of onion in 3 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of flour, ½ cup of cream, yolks of 2 eggs, salt, and pepper; cook until thickened.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of sherry wine and ⅔ cup of chopped lobster; pour out to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the center of the timbals with the lobster filling, cover with the fish mixture.

  2. Cook in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) in a pan of hot water; serve with lobster 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 + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Stale bread
Soaked and cooked bread gives the mixture body and a light, binding texture.
Eggs
Eggs bind the fish mixture and set it firm as it bakes.
Halibut or cod
The mild white fish forms the main body of the timbal.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to both the fish mixture and the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape once cooled.
Lobster
Provides the sweet, rich seafood flavor of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake in a pan of hot water. The water bath moderates the oven heat so the egg-based mixture sets gently. Too much direct heat can make eggs curdle and turn the texture rubbery or grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, flour, lobster, cream, butter, sherry):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, flour, lobster, cream, butter, sherry. 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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