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Lobster Patties

A savory dish of lobster mixed with a creamy sauce, served in puff pastry cases.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Prepare the puff pastry and roll it out to a thickness of ½ inch.

  3. Use a hot, wet cutter to stamp out 8 rounds of pastry.

  4. Brush the pastry rounds with beaten egg and create an inner ring with a 1‑inch cutter.

  5. Bake the pastry in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.

  6. Remove the tops, scoop out the soft inside, and keep the cases warm.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and cook for a few minutes.

  2. Pour in the fish stock or milk and stir until the sauce boils.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add the cream, egg yolks, lemon juice, anchovy essence, and seasoning.

  4. Simmer gently until the egg yolks thicken, then strain through a fine sieve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Return the sauce to the pan, add the lobster (cut into dice), and heat thoroughly.

  2. Fill the pastry cases with the lobster mixture, cover, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, golden case that holds the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, with the flour forming its base.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Lobster
Provides the main flavour and tender texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolks in the sauce. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat and can scramble or curdle if the sauce boils hard, so keep it simmering gently and stir while it thickens.

“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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