Skip to main content

Lobster in Aspic

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and shrimp work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 403 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Lobster in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour a thin layer of aspic onto a flat tin with a turned-up edge.

  2. Slice the back of the lobster and lay the slices on the aspic.

  3. Garnish with coral and small green salad or capers.

  4. Pour more aspic over to set the garnish, then add another thin layer on top.

  5. Once cold, cut out with a fancy round cutter using a palette knife to lift the slices.

  6. Chop the remaining jelly and mix with more aspic to make half a pint.

  7. Chop the rest of the lobster (excluding large claws) and mix with salad, dressing it with oil, coarse sea salt, mignonette pepper, and vinegar.

  8. Pile the salad in the center of a dish, pour thick mayonnaise over it, and arrange the lobster slices on top.

  9. Divide the claws lengthwise and place them between the slices, adding prawns or shrimps if available.

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 + shrimptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Capers + shrimptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Vinegar + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, vinegar, shrimp):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, vinegar, shrimp. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes