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Lobster a LA Neubourg

A lobster dish cooked in butter, cream, and egg yolks, served with 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 the lobster

  1. Remove lobster from shell and cut into slices.

  2. Melt butter in a pan over medium heat.

Cook and finish

  1. Add lobster and cook for three minutes.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg; cook for one minute.

  3. Add heavy cream and slightly beaten egg yolks; stir until thickened.

  4. 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, tender meat.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as the lobster cooks.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and body, forming the sauce base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set gently with heat, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the pan is too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly until the sauce thickens smoothly.

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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