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Sauce

Newburg Sauce for Fish or Lobster

A sauce made with sherry, cream, salt, and pepper for fish or lobster.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Newburg Sauce for Fish or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks until very light.

  2. Add the sherry and cream, then cook over boiling water.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and becomes smooth.

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 + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Egg yolks (in the method)
Thicken the sauce as they cook and give it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and softens the sauce as it thickens.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat and can curdle or scramble if they get too hot or sit still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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