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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster meat, coral, cayenne pepper, salt, and drawn butter.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the coral

  1. Break up the coral of the lobster and place it on a paper in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Pound the coral in a mortar.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Chop the meat of the lobster's tail and claws into pieces, not too small.

Make the sauce

  1. Half an hour before dinner, prepare ½ pint of drawn-butter sauce.

  2. Add the chopped lobster, a pinch of coral, Cayenne, and salt to the drawn-butter sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Provides the main flavour and the tender, meaty texture of the dish.
Coral
Adds concentrated shellfish flavour and a rich colour to the sauce.
Drawn-butter sauce
Carries richness and moisture, coating the pieces of lobster.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the rich butter flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the chopped lobster to the sauce. The lobster meat is already cooked, and prolonged high heat makes shellfish toughen and dry. Fold it into the warm sauce gently so it heats through without overcooking.

“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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