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Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish cooked with butter, sherry, cream, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut the lobster into small slices using a silver knife.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and add the lobster.

Cook and finish

  1. Season with salt and a dash of red pepper, then pour in the sherry.

  2. Cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Mix the beaten egg yolks with the cream and pour it over the lobster.

  4. Serve as soon as it boils.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and body of the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream sauce as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the sauce with the yolks.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping to cook the lobster gently in the pan.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as it boils. Egg yolks thicken the cream by gentle heat, but if the mixture boils too long it can curdle and turn grainy. Serving promptly keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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