Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Melt 12 tablespoons of butter in a stewpan.
Dice the small lobster and set aside.
Pound the lobster spawn with ¼ pound of fresh butter in a mortar until well combined.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into the melted butter when it is just boiling.
Stir over heat until the butter is fully melted.
Season with essence of anchovy, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.
Add the diced lobster to the sauce and serve hot.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together470 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster spawn
- Gives the sauce its colour and rich lobster flavour when pounded into butter.
- Fresh butter
- Binds with the pounded spawn and enriches the sauce with fat and smooth body.
- Melted butter
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the other flavourings evenly.
- Lobster
- Adds firm pieces of meat that stay distinct in the smooth sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its fattiness.
The step that matters
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into the melted butter when it is just boiling.. Sieving removes fibrous solids so the sauce stays smooth, and adding the spawn butter to hot butter helps it blend without separating or curdling.
“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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