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Lobster Newburg

A lobster dish with butter, spices, brandy, sherry, egg yolks, cream, served warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry 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 Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobster

  1. Cook the lobster meat in butter over low heat for 5 minutes.

  2. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, brandy, sherry, and mace.

  3. Simmer for 5 more minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix them with the cream.

  2. Pour the egg and cream mixture over the lobster.

  3. Stir constantly for 1.5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately in a warm dish.

  2. Garnish with triangles of puff pastry.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provides the main protein and sweet flavour that the sauce is built around.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a smooth, rich sauce as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a silky body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to cook the lobster gently and carry its taste.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth to the lobster as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while the yolks and cream cook. Egg yolks set when heated, and if the sauce gets too hot or sits still, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, butter, pepper, brandy, sherry, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, butter, pepper, brandy, sherry, egg. 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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