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Lobster a LA Newburg

Lobster cooked in butter, sherry, cream, and egg yolks, served on toast.

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 a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut the lobster meat into bits.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan over direct heat.

  3. Add the lobster meat and heat through for two minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Transfer the pan to a hot water bath.

  2. Stir in the sherry, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Mix the cream with the beaten egg yolks and add to the pan.

  4. Stir until the mixture is creamy.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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, delicate flavor of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and rich flavor while the lobster gently heats.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently and add richness and body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the hot pan. Egg yolks begin to scramble above roughly 160°F. Tempering the cream and yolks and keeping the pan in a hot water bath rather than over direct heat keeps the sauce smooth and creamy instead of grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

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