Skip to main content
Main

Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish cooked in butter, seasoned, and finished with a cream sauce thickened with egg yolk and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Cook 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.

  4. Thicken with heavy cream, then stir in the egg yolk and sherry wine.

Make the cream sauce

  1. For the cream sauce, melt 1 ounce of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the flour and thin down with boiling cream to the desired consistency.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, delicate meat.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the lobster cooks and in the sauce base.
Heavy cream
Supplies richness and body, forming the base of the creamy sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens and enriches the sauce as its proteins set gently with heat.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cream.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the cream sauce its body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so if the sauce is too hot the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Adding it gently and keeping the heat moderate keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

“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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes