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Crab or Lobster, Potted

A dish of crab or lobster meat cooked with butter, spices, and cream, then pressed into pots and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crab or Lobster, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Remove the meat from the shells of the crabs or lobsters and chop it finely.

Cook the mixture

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chopped meat, butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Cook slowly for about 20 minutes.

  3. Add the cream and stir, cooking by the side of the fire until the mixture is a smooth, thick paste.

Pot and seal

  1. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and press it into pots.

  2. Once cold, cover the mixture with clarified butter.

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

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

  2. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs or lobsters
Provide the main meat that gives the potted mixture its flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture as it cooks into the mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, helping the mixture become a smooth, spreadable paste.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked meat through a fine sieve breaks up fibres and removes stringy bits, giving the smooth texture a potted spread needs.

“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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