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Sauce

Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from eggs, lobster spawn, mustard, butter, and lobster pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Boil the eggs for three minutes.

  2. Mix the eggs with water and lobster spawn; rub smooth.

  3. Stir in mustard, drawn butter or salad oil, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  4. Boil mace and whole pepper to extract their strength; strain.

  5. Melt butter in the strained mixture.

Finish with lobster

  1. Stew the lobster pieces in the butter until tender.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 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. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Eggs
Emulsify with the butter and spawn to give the sauce a smooth, thick body.
Lobster spawn
Adds rich lobster flavour and colour to the sauce base.
Drawn butter or salad oil
Supplies fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a silky, rich texture.
Butter
Melted into the base to add richness and a glossy finish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Lobster
Stewed in the butter until tender, supplying the main flavour and texture of the dish.

The step that matters

Rub the egg and spawn mixture smooth. If the eggs are not worked smooth before the fat is added, the sauce can curdle or turn grainy. Eggs thicken as their proteins set, so lumps and uneven mixing give an uneven texture. Adding fat gradually keeps the emulsion stable.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lobster, mustard, butter, pepper, 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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