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Lobster Newburgh

A lobster dish served with a cream sauce flavored with mace, cayenne pepper, sherry, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lobster Newburgh

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster as for salad.

  2. In a chafing dish, melt the butter and add the cayenne pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light, then mix in the cream and mace.

  2. Heat the mixture for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly until it thickens to the consistency of salad dressing.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in the sherry and brandy.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream sauce as they heat and give it richness.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, helping it turn smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished sauce.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but can curdle if overheated. Stirring constantly keeps the heat even so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, cream, butter, egg, pepper, sherry, brandy. 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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