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Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish cooked with butter, sherry, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

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

Cook

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

  2. Season with salt and a dash of red pepper.

  3. Pour in the sherry.

  4. Cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the beaten egg yolks with the cream.

  2. Pour the mixture over the lobster.

  3. 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
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the seafood flavor and texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the smooth sauce base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat, giving the sauce body and a silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping to cook the lobster gently and carry flavor.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as it boils. Egg yolks thicken the cream when heated, but if the sauce boils too long or too hard it can curdle and turn grainy. Pulling it off the heat at the right moment keeps it 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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