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
Remove the meat from the lobster and cut it into small pieces.
In a chafing dish, melt the butter and add the lobster pieces.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then pour the sherry over it.
Add the beaten eggs and cream, stirring to combine.
Heat until the mixture comes to a boil, then serve immediately.
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.
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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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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, rich flavor.
- Eggs
- Thicken the cream sauce as they set when heated, giving it body.
- Cream
- Forms the rich sauce base and carries moisture through the dish.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the lobster as it cooks.
- Sherry
- Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs and cream. Egg proteins thicken the sauce as they heat, but if the mixture boils too hard or too long the eggs can scramble and curdle. Stir steadily and watch the heat closely.
“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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