Name: Lobster Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cold boiled lobster; pepper; mace; coarse sea salt; 1 teacup drawn butter; ½ cup bottled milk; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Remove the meat from the cold boiled lobster and chop it very fine.
Season the lobster meat with pepper, mace, and coarse sea salt.

Make the sauce

Stir the seasoned lobster into 1 teacup of drawn butter.
Add ½ cup of bottled milk and simmer the mixture for a few minutes without boiling.
Finally, add the juice of ½ lemon and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Cold boiled lobster: Provides the main flavour and the tender chunks that give the sauce its body.
Drawn butter: Carries the flavour and gives the sauce its rich, smooth texture.
Bottled milk: Thins the butter and adds mild sweetness and creaminess to the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and lobster flavours.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Once milk boils it can curdle and separate, so the sauce must be kept just below a boil to stay smooth and creamy.

Swap the mace

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

Parsleyfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Macethe original

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