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Sauce

Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster spawn, mustard, butter or oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and small pieces of lobster meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the water with the lobster spawn in a pan until smooth.

  2. Stir in the mustard, drawn butter or salad oil, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  3. Cut the lobster meat into very small pieces and stew until tender.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster spawn
Gives the sauce its rich, briny flavour and colour.
Drawn butter or salad oil
Adds fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and cuts through the richness of the fat.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the fat into the sauce.
Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and texture, softening as it stews in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the fat slowly and keep the sauce smooth. Fat and vinegar-based liquids separate easily if added too quickly or left to overheat. Mustard acts as an emulsifier, helping the oil or butter bind into the liquid, so adding the fat gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth rather than greasy and split.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, pepper, vinegar, meat. 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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