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Lobster Sauce

A buttery lobster sauce made from lobster spawn, meat, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spawn butter

  1. Pound the spawn of the lobster with butter in a mortar.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Heat butter sauce in a stewpan and add the lobster spawn.

  2. Cook until very hot and smooth; if not smooth, pass through a sieve.

  3. Add the diced meat of the lobster and heat thoroughly.

  4. Squeeze in lemon juice 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 spawn
Gives the sauce its rich colour and deep lobster flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Butter sauce
Forms the base liquid that the spawn and lobster meat are heated in.
Lobster meat
Adds the main lobster texture and sweet, delicate flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and lobster flavours.

The step that matters

Cook the spawn until very hot and smooth. If the spawn is overheated it can curdle or turn grainy, and if it is not fully blended into the butter sauce it leaves lumps. Heating gently and passing the sauce through a sieve keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, sauce, meat):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, sauce, meat. 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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