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Lobster in Aspic

A chilled lobster dish set in aspic jelly with a mayonnaise sauce and garnished with hard‑boiled eggs and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Melt enough aspic jelly to thinly coat a small border mold and let it set.

  2. Neatly arrange the lobster flesh and claws, cut into pieces, in the mold with tarragon leaves and capers, then fill with more jelly.

Make the salad

  1. Wash, dry, and shred the lettuce, then mix it with the remaining lobster, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Once the mold is set, turn it out and place the salad in the center, surrounding it with the jelly.

  2. Smoothly mask the salad with a thick layer of Mayonnaise sauce.

  3. Garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs, lobster coral, claws, capers, and truffles.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flesh and rich flavor of the dish.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gel that holds the lobster and gives a firm, cool texture.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and freshness to the salad filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a firm, creamy texture and mild richness as garnish.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess, coating the salad with a smooth, rich layer.

The step that matters

Let the mold set fully before turning it out. Aspic is a gelatin-based jelly that firms as it chills. If it is not fully set, it will not hold its shape when unmolded, and the salad and jelly surround can collapse or smear.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, tarragon, capers, olive, truffle, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, tarragon, capers, olive, truffle, vinegar. 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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