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Lobster a LA Neubourg

A lobster dish cooked with butter, spices, cream, and egg yolks, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Neubourg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the lobster from the shell and cut it into slices.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the lobster, and cook for three minutes.

  2. Add the salt, cayenne, and nutmeg; cook for one minute.

  3. Stir in the cream and slightly beaten egg yolks until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve with toast.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, meaty flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the lobster brown lightly in the pan.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, and forms the base of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they cook, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and egg yolks until thickened. Egg yolks set when heated, so over-high heat or overcooking can curdle the sauce. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly, removing the pan from heat once it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, pepper, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, pepper, cream, egg. 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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