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Lobster a LA Newburg

Lobster à la Newburg is a lobster dish with white sauce, grape juice, mushrooms, and pecans served in toasted bread cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the lobster, then let it cool and cut it into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the white sauce and stir in the egg yolks.

  2. Sauté the mushrooms in butter and add them to the sauce.

  3. Add the lobster and grape juice to the sauce and mix well.

  4. Season to taste and fold in the pecans last.

Serve

  1. Serve in toasted bread cups.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Grape + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Grape + pecanstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Mushroom + pecanstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Egg + pecanstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 the body of the dish.
White sauce
Forms the creamy base that binds the other ingredients together.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a tender, meaty texture.
White grape juice
Adds mild sweetness and acidity to balance the rich sauce.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor contrast.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks into the warm sauce gently over a double boiler. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce gets too hot they can curdle and turn grainy. The gentle heat of a double boiler lets the yolks set into a smooth, creamy sauce.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, grape, sauce, mushroom, egg):

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, grape, sauce, mushroom, egg. 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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