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Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish cooked with butter, cream sauce, egg yolk, sherry wine, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut the lobster into pieces about the size of a hickory nut.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and add the lobster pieces.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the melted butter and flour.

  2. Thin the mixture with boiling cream.

Finish the dish

  1. Thicken the lobster mixture with heavy cream sauce.

  2. Add the egg yolk and sherry wine to the lobster mixture.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main body and sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness to the lobster and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the cream sauce body.
Heavy cream
Forms the base of the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when the yolk goes in, it can scramble and turn grainy, so the mixture should be warm but not boiling when it is added.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

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