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Sauce

Newburg Sauce for Fish or Lobster

A sauce made with egg yolks, sherry, milk, cream, salt, and pepper, thickened over boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Newburg Sauce for Fish or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Add the sherry, milk, cream, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thick and smooth.

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. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Milk
Thins the custard base and adds dairy flavor while still allowing the yolks to thicken it.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the yolks and cream.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Steady stirring over indirect steam spreads heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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