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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster meat, shell stock, flour, butter, and optional anchovy, ketchup, and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Wipe the shell of the lobster and save any liquid that runs out.

  2. Remove the meat from the tail and claws, cut into dice-sized pieces, and set aside.

  3. Scoop out the cream and small pieces of meat from the head and coral, pound with salt and cayenne in a mortar.

Make the stock

  1. Break the shells into pieces and place in a saucepan with enough water to cover, mace, and peppercorns. Boil for 10 minutes, then strain the liquid and let it cool.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour with the cooled liquid and add to a saucepan with the butter. Shake the pan until the sauce boils, then gently stir in the pounded lobster and let it boil briefly.

  2. Add the reserved lobster pieces and boil again.

  3. For a stronger flavor, stir in anchovy sauce, catsup, and soy sauce until well mixed.

  4. Before serving, add small pieces of cold butter to the sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Supplies the main sweet, savory flavor and the tender meat pieces in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cooled stock into a body-rich sauce as it boils.
Anchovy sauce
Adds deep savory depth to strengthen the overall flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding the flour. Flour only thickens fully when the liquid boils, so the starch swells and sets the sauce. Stirring gently keeps the delicate lobster pieces intact while it thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, flour, butter, anchovy, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, flour, butter, anchovy, sauce. 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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