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Lobster with Olive Sauce

A lobster dish simmered in a sauce of butter, flour, beef stock, olives, sherry, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster with Olive Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

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

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and lightly browned.

  3. Gradually add the beef stock and chopped olives, stirring until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Once thickened, gently fold in the lobster meat using a silver knife.

  2. Cook until heated through, then add sherry and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lobster meat
Forms the main protein of the dish and is folded in gently so it stays tender.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and carries the flour to form the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter and gives it body as it cooks.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding savory flavor as it thickens.
Stuffed olives
Add salty, briny flavor and bits of texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the lobster meat. Lobster meat is delicate and turns tough and rubbery when overcooked or stirred hard. Folding it in gently after the sauce has thickened, then heating only until warmed through, keeps it tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, lobster, meat, flour, olive, sherry):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, lobster, meat, flour, olive, sherry. 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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