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Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish cooked with butter, salt, cayenne or paprika, sherry or madeira, egg yolks, and cream.

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

  1. Cut the meat from the lobster into inch pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a chafing dish or saucepan.

Cook the lobster

  1. Add the lobster, salt, and cayenne or paprika. Cover and cook for five minutes.

  2. Add the sherry or madeira and cook for another five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix them with the cream. Stir this mixture into the lobster until it thickens.

  2. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 protein and the sweet, firm meat that forms the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the lobster as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the base of the thickened sauce with the yolks.
Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and aromatic depth, rounding out the sweetness of the lobster and cream.

The step that matters

Stir the yolk-cream mixture into the lobster and serve immediately. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if they get too hot they scramble or curdle. Stirring them in off the heat or on low heat and serving promptly keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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