Name: Salpicon of Lobster
Ingredients: 1 pint good white sauce; 4 mushrooms, chopped; 1 truffle, chopped; ¼ pint diced lobster meat; 2 egg yolks (optional)

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salpicon of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the white sauce, mushrooms, truffle, and lobster meat.
Cook for 5 minutes to thicken.
If desired, add a liaison of 2 egg yolks before serving.

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.

Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together527 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + meattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,423 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White sauce: Forms the creamy base that binds the other ingredients together.
Egg yolks: Thicken the sauce into a richer, smoother liaison when added.
Lobster meat: Provides the main seafood flavour and tender texture.
Mushrooms: Add earthy flavour and a soft, moist bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk liaison. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Adding them off the heat, just before serving, 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.

Lobster Sauce174 recipes

Lobster Croquettes99 recipes

Mushroom Soup60 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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Salpicon of Lobster