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Lobster and Crab Served Cold

A cold sauce made from lobster spawn, egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, and olive oil, served with lobster.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster and Crab Served Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the claws from the lobster and crack them at the joints.

  2. Open the body and tail with a sharp knife, removing the dark vein and the lady.

  3. Arrange the lobster meat neatly on a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and lobster spawn to form a paste.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and anchovy sauce; mix well.

  3. Serve the sauce in a salad bowl alongside the lobster.

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a smooth, thick base that emulsifies the oil and vinegar into the sauce.
Lobster spawn
Adds rich, briny flavour and colour to the paste.
Sweet olive oil
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a silky, creamy texture.
Prepared mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the oil and vinegar together and add sharpness.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.

The step that matters

Mixing the paste and adding the liquids. Egg yolks emulsify oil and vinegar only when the yolks are mashed smooth first and the oil is added gradually; if the oil goes in too fast or the paste is lumpy, the sauce can separate or turn grainy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lobster, pepper, olive, cider, vinegar, anchovy):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Lettucefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lobster, pepper, olive, cider, vinegar, anchovy. 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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