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Fricasseed Lobster

A lobster fricassée made with lobster meat, fat, coral, milk, butter, Worcestershire sauce, flour, egg yolk, and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fricasseed Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobster

  1. Combine lobster meat, fat, coral, pepper, salt, milk, water, butter, and Worcestershire sauce in a frying pan.

  2. Simmer until the liquid turns a rich red color.

Make the thickening

  1. Rub flour into ½ tablespoon butter in a small bowl.

  2. Stir the butter and flour mixture into ½ cup hot milk.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolk to the mixture.

Finish

  1. Stir this mixture into the lobster and add sherry wine.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it is cooked with butter and hot milk.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the lobster and the sauce.
Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate seafood flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk to the thickened mixture. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat by coagulating its proteins. If the mixture is too hot or boils after the yolk goes in, it can curdle and turn grainy, so the sauce should be stirred and kept below a simmer.

“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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