Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce for Turbot, Salmon, Etc
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Boil the lobster, then remove the meat from the shell and cut it into small square pieces.
Place the spawn from under the tail in a mortar with the butter and pound until smooth.
Rub the mixture through a sieve and set aside.
Make the drawn butter
To make the drawn butter, stir 4 tablespoons of flour mixed with a little cold water into 1 pint of boiling water.
Let it boil and thicken, then remove from heat and stir in 4 ounces of butter and salt to taste.
Finish the sauce
Add the anchovy sauce, cream, and mace to the drawn butter and mix well.
Gently fold in the lobster pieces without stirring to avoid breaking them.
Do not boil the sauce to maintain the bright red color.
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.
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Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together470 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
-
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,050 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hen lobster
- Supplies the meat and spawn that give the sauce its flavor, colour and texture.
- Drawn butter
- Forms the thickened base that carries the sauce and holds the lobster pieces.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the spawn and sauce.
- Anchovy sauce
- Adds savoury depth to the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture.
The step that matters
Do not boil the sauce. Once the cream and lobster are in, high heat can make the cream separate and dull the bright red colour of the lobster. Keep the sauce warm and stir gently.
Swap the mace
The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, anchovy, sauce, cream, pepper):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, sauce, cream, pepper. 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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