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Creamed Lobster a LA New York

A creamy lobster dish with butter, egg yolks, mustard, milk, and cracker crumbs, served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Lobster a LA New York

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the lobster pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, hard-boiled egg yolks, and mustard to form a smooth paste.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the mixture in a chafing dish.

  2. Gradually add the milk and the beaten raw egg yolk, stirring continuously.

  3. Add the cracker crumbs and lobster, tossing with a fork and spoon until thoroughly heated.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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 the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into the butter to form a smooth paste that thickens and enriches the sauce.
Raw egg yolk
Thickens the milk as it heats and gives the sauce a creamy, custard-like body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a creamy texture.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the mixture into a spreadable consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the raw egg yolk to the milk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if it is added cold or too quickly, or the heat is too high, it can scramble into lumps. Adding the milk gradually while stirring constantly keeps the yolk smooth and the sauce creamy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, egg, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, egg, pepper, milk. 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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