Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the roux
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour and cook until nearly browned.
Make the sauce
Add the fish stock and bring to a boil.
Remove the lobster meat from the shell and cut it into small pieces.
Add the lobster meat, anchovy essence, cream, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper to the sauce.
Stir well and heat through before serving.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together470 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,050 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together637 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
- Fish stock
- Forms the liquid body of the sauce, giving it a seafood base.
- Lobster
- Provides the main seafood flavour and tender pieces in the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour until nearly browned. Flour must be cooked in the butter long enough to lose its raw taste and thicken properly, but if it browns too far it becomes bitter and darkens the sauce. Keep it gentle and stir constantly.
“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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