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Lobster, Newburg Style

A lobster dish with truffles, sherry, cream, and egg yolks served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster, Newburg Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster meat into pieces.

Cook the lobster

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the lobster, salt, pepper, and truffles; cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the sherry and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whip them into the cream.

  2. Slowly add the cream mixture to the lobster and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Serve the lobster mixture on toast.

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 + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main body and sweet, delicate meat that forms the dish.
Truffles
Add a earthy, aromatic flavour to the lobster and cream.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream and give the sauce a rich, smooth texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour, balancing the richness of the cream.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour for cooking the lobster.

The step that matters

Slowly add the cream mixture to the lobster. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot too fast. Adding the cream mixture gradually and cooking gently keeps the sauce smooth and thickened.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, truffle, sherry, wine, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, truffle, sherry, wine, cream, egg, butter. 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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