Name: Lobster a LA Newburg
Ingredients: 2 freshly boiled lobsters; 1 ounce fresh butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon red pepper; 2 medium-sized truffles, diced; ⅓ cup Madeira wine; 3 egg yolks; ½ pint sweet cream

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 a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Split the lobsters and remove the meat from the shells, cutting it into 1-inch pieces.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and add the lobster meat, salt, red pepper, and diced truffles.
Cook for 5 minutes, then add the Madeira wine and reduce by half, about 3 minutes.
In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and sweet cream, then add to the lobster mixture.
Gently stir for 2 minutes or until the mixture thickens.

Serve

Pour into a hot tureen 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.

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.

Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Truffle + madeira winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together195 recipes
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters: Provides the main meat, which is cut into pieces and gently heated through in the sauce.
Egg yolks: Thicken the cream-based sauce as they gently set with heat.
Sweet cream: Adds richness and body, carrying the sauce's smooth texture.
Madeira wine: Adds sweetness and depth as it reduces, concentrating its flavour into the sauce.
Truffles: Add an earthy, aromatic flavour to the butter and lobster mixture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the lobster and truffles cook in a silky base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too hard, they can scramble and turn grainy. Stir gently over moderate heat until the sauce just thickens.

“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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Lobster a LA Newburg