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Sauce

Common Lobster Sauce

A buttery sauce flavored with anchovy essence, mace, cayenne, and lobster meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,405 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Common Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Add to half a pint of good melted butter a tablespoonful of essence of anchovies, a small half-saltspoonful of freshly pounded mace, and less than a quarter of cayenne.

  2. If a couple of spoonsful of cream should be at hand, stir them into the sauce when it boils.

Add the lobster and serve

  1. Then put in the flesh of the tail and claws of a small lobster cut into dice (or any other form) of equal size.

  2. Keep the saucepan by the side of the fire until the lobster is quite heated through, but do not let the sauce boil again.

  3. Serve it very hot.

  4. A small quantity can be made on occasion with the remains of a lobster which has been served at table.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

108Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
1 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

Butter
Melted butter forms the rich base that carries the flavour of the sauce.
Lobster (in the method)
Supplies the main flesh and sweet flavour of the sauce.
Cream (in the method)
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the sauce.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce from boiling after the lobster goes in. Once the lobster is added, boiling can toughen the delicate lobster flesh and can cause a melted butter sauce to separate, so gentle heat is needed to warm it through.

“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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