Skip to main content
Main

Lobster a LA Newburg

Creamy lobster dish with egg yolk, flour, butter, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Cut the lobster meat into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. Rub the egg yolks into a paste with the tablespoon of cream.

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter, then stir in the flour until well blended.

  2. Gradually add the egg yolk paste and the cup of cream, stirring continuously.

  3. Add a tiny pinch of baking soda and season with salt, cayenne, and mace to taste.

  4. When the mixture is creamy and very hot, stir in the lobster meat and heat through.

  5. Just before serving, add the sherry.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Lobster
Provides the main meat, which is heated through in the sauce rather than cooked long.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce with richness and help it thicken as it heats.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and helps the flour blend into a roux.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk paste to the hot sauce. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot too fast. Blending them into a paste first and adding them gradually while stirring helps them combine smoothly into the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, flour, egg, cream, butter, sherry):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, flour, egg, cream, butter, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes