Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Pie

A baked pie of boiled lobster, butter, crumbs, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 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 and remove the meat from the tails and claws.

  2. Cut the lobster meat into pieces and beat it in a mortar.

Make the filling

  1. Season with pepper, salt, vinegar, and anchovy liquor.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it with the lobster, roll crumbs, and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place puff pastry in a dish, layer in the lobster tails, and top with the remaining meat.

  2. Cover with a lid and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

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. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provides the main meat that gives the pie its flavour and body.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and enrich it, helping it set as it bakes.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Roll (crumbed)
Absorbs liquid and helps hold the lobster mixture together.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky crust that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the lobster meat in a mortar. Beating breaks the meat into a finer, more cohesive texture so it binds evenly with the crumbs and yolks instead of staying in loose, stringy pieces.

“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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes