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Lobster Patties

A savory patty made from lobster mixed with white sauce, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, anchovy essence, and optional parsley, baked in flaky pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the lobster into pieces.

  2. Heat the lobster in the white sauce.

  3. Season with cayenne, lemon juice, salt, and anchovy essence or parsley.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the hot patty cases with the mixture.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main filling and its sweet, meaty flavour.
White sauce
Binds the lobster pieces together and keeps the filling moist.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster and white sauce.
Flaky pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Heat the lobster in the white sauce. Heating gently until the sauce is hot through, without boiling hard, keeps the lobster tender and the sauce smooth rather than tough or split.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, pepper, lemon, anchovy):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, pepper, lemon, anchovy. 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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