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Lobster a LA Newburgh

A creamy lobster dish with butter, cream, egg yolks, and Sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Newburgh

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut lobster meat into small pieces.

  2. Melt butter in a chafing dish, then add lobster and cook for two minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Add Tabasco, nutmeg, salt, and Sherry wine to the lobster.

  2. Beat egg yolks slightly, then mix with cream and add to the lobster.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

Serve

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture into a smooth, rich custard-like sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the lobster cook gently in the pan.
Flour
Helps thicken the sauce and gives it body so it holds together rather than running thin.
Thin cream
Provides moisture and richness, forming the base of the sauce that the yolks thicken.
Lobster meat
Main protein; it stays tender when cooked briefly and gently rather than for long.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot or are left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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