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Salpicon of Lobster

A sauce of diced lobster, mushrooms, and truffle in a butter‑flour cream base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salpicon of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Add the cream and white stock, seasoning with salt and cayenne.

  4. Cook until the mixture thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped lobster, mushrooms, and truffle.

  2. Serve in lobster claws or shells.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavor as the roux's fat.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
White stock
Provides savory liquid that combines with the roux to form the sauce.
Lobster
Supplies the main seafood flavor and texture in the filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a tender, moist texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Flour needs to be cooked long enough in the hot butter and liquid to swell and set the sauce. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce with a raw floury taste, while overcooking can break or scorch it in the double boiler.

“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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