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Lobster Newburg

A lobster dish with butter, salt, cayenne, truffles, sherry, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Cook the lobster

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster, butter, salt, cayenne, and chopped truffles.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the sherry and stir well.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the lobster and stir for 2 minutes.

  3. Serve very hot.

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 + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Truffle + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main body of the dish, cooked gently in butter until tender.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a rich sauce as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and combines with the yolks to form a smooth sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the butter and cream.
Truffles
Contribute a deep, earthy aroma to the lobster.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the lobster. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot too quickly. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the yolks thicken the cream smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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