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Lobster Sauce for Fish

A sauce made from lobster spawn, meat, butter, water, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spawn

  1. Remove the spawn from the live lobsters.

  2. Bruise the spawn in a mortar, add a little cold water, then strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Set the strained liquid aside.

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobsters until three-quarters cooked.

  2. Pick the lobster meat and cut the meat into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lobster meat, butter, water, and enough spawn liquor to color the sauce.

  2. Heat the mixture over a fire.

  3. Thicken with flour and water, and stir until it boils.

  4. Season with anchovy liquor, lemon juice, and Cayenne pepper.

  5. Let the sauce simmer and skim off any foam.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Spawn from live lobsters
Gives the sauce its color and a rich lobster flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and smooth richness that carries the lobster flavor.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked.
3 large lobsters
Provides the main lobster meat and its sweet, delicate flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich butter.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils, then simmer. Flour must reach a boil to fully thicken and lose its raw starchy taste. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan, while skimming foam keeps the sauce clear.

“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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