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Lobster Newburg

A creamy lobster dish with butter, flour, egg yolks, cream, sherry, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour to create a roux.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the cream.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the roux and stir until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster pieces and heat through.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the sherry and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Provides the main protein and flavor of the dish.
Butter
Carries the flour into a roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream when gently heated and give the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the base of the sauce with the yolks.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture to the roux and stir until it thickens. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Adding them to the warm roux and stirring constantly lets the sauce thicken smoothly through gentle heating.

“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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