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Lobster Pie

A baked lobster pie with a shell broth, butter, flour, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters until cooked.

  2. Remove the tails, cut them in half, and take out the gut.

  3. Cut each tail into 4 pieces and place in a small dish.

  4. Add the meat from the claws and body, removing any furry parts.

  5. Beat the spawn in a mortar.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine the shells with water, vinegar, pepper, salt, and pounded mace.

  2. Add the butter rolled in flour and boil to extract flavor from the shells.

  3. Strain the mixture and pour it over the lobster in the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and cover with pastry.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until the pastry is done.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main meat, which is the centerpiece of the pie.
Butter rolled in flour
Adds richness and, with the flour, thickens the liquid for a fuller texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps draw flavor from the boiled shells into the liquid.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that adds texture and helps protect the lobster beneath the pastry.

The step that matters

Boil the shells in the sauce. Boiling the shells with the butter and flour extracts flavor and gives the liquid body. Boiling too briefly leaves the sauce thin and bland, while the lobster meat itself should not be overcooked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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