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Lobster, Oyster, or Shrimp Sauce

A sauce made with fish stock, cream, egg yolks, lemon juice, and lobster, oysters, or shrimp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster 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, Oyster, or Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Put the fish stock into a saucepan.

  2. Add the lobster or shrimp and heat until very hot.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  4. Strain the mixture into the saucepan.

  5. Add the lemon juice and season to taste.

  6. Cook for one minute without boiling.

Prepare oysters and serve

  1. If using oysters, bring six oysters to a boil in their own liquid.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Use the liquid for the sauce.

  4. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  5. Cut the oysters into quarters.

  6. Heat the oysters in the sauce.

  7. 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.

  1. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Fish + lobstertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together326 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it body and richness.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Fish stock
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the flavor of the seafood.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Cook for one minute without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle once the yolk mixture is added.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, egg, lobster. 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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