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Lobster

A creamy lobster sauce made with butter, egg yolks, mustard, milk, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep the lobster fat separate from the meat and break the lobster into pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, lobster fat, hard boiled egg yolks, and dry mustard until smooth.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the mixture in a chafing dish.

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

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

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Their fat and fine texture help smooth the sauce and give it body.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies with butter and milk and thickens the sauce as it heats.
Rich milk
Provides the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a creamy sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, thickening the sauce slightly.
Lobster
Supplies the main flavor and tender meat pieces in the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the raw egg yolk and milk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the sauce gets too hot or is not stirred constantly, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Adding the milk gradually and stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, cream, 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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