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Lobster a LA Newburg

A creamy lobster dish with eggs, butter, sherry, brandy, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster, then remove the meat and cut it into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour, stirring until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the cream or milk, sherry, and brandy, cooking until thickened.

  3. Stir in the eggs and mix well, then season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the lobster pieces 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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 sweet, delicate seafood flavor that the sauce carries.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce gently as they set with heat, giving it a richer, silkier body.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and forms the base of the roux with flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the sauce is too hot when they are added they can scramble and turn grainy. Adding them off direct heat or after the sauce has cooled slightly keeps it 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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