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Lobster Patties

A baked dish of lobster, gravy, breadcrumbs, and puff pastry, topped with a lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Mash the small claws and spawn in a dish until it forms a paste.

  2. Add gravy and bread crumbs.

  3. Heat over the fire until boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture until it thickens to the consistency of cream.

  5. Combine half of the sauce with the lobster.

  6. Set the other half aside.

  7. Melt butter with pepper, salt, and lemon juice over low heat. Let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a patty pan or dish with puff pastry.

  2. Fill it with the lobster mixture.

  3. Cover with more pastry.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes.

  5. Once baked, cut the top pastry cover.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the reserved sauce with a little butter until thickened.

  2. Pour the sauce over the patty.

  3. Garnish with squeezed lemon.

  4. Place the pastry cover on top, leaving space to see the filling.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 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

Small claws and spawn
Mashed into a paste, they add concentrated lobster flavour to the filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and body, helping the mixture thicken into a creamy sauce.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the mixture thicken into a spreadable filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth finish to the sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp shell that bakes golden and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Strain until thickened to the consistency of cream. Too little reduction leaves the sauce thin and watery, so it won't coat the filling; over-reducing makes it pasty. Stop when it coats a spoon like cream.

“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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