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Lobster Coquilles

A pastry shell dish filled with lobster, mushrooms, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Coquilles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the shells

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line small shell‑shaped molds with short crust pastry and prick with a fork.

  3. Fill the molds with uncooked rice or dried peas and bake until golden brown.

  4. Remove the rice or peas and place the pastry shells on a sieve.

Make the filling

  1. Cut the lobster meat into small dice.

  2. In a pan, combine the lobster, chopped mushrooms, and butter, using 2 tablespoons of butter for every 4 pounds of lobster.

  3. Heat the mixture until hot, then add white sauce and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  4. Keep the mixture warm in a bain‑marie.

Assemble and serve

  1. Warm the baked shells in the oven, fill them with the lobster mixture, and top with grated breadcrumbs or panurette.

  2. Serve on small plates and garnish with parsley.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the filling and supplies the sweet, tender meat.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour that soften as they cook into the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the lobster and mushroom mixture.
White sauce
Binds the lobster and mushrooms into a creamy, moist filling.
Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp shell that holds the filling in place.

The step that matters

Bake the pastry shells fully before filling. Baking the shells until golden with weights inside sets and dries the pastry. If they are underbaked, the moist lobster filling soaks into the dough and the shells turn soggy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, mushroom, butter, sauce, pepper, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, mushroom, butter, sauce, pepper, parsley. 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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