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-Sauce, or Crab-Sauce, for Turbot, Etc.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Boil the lobster until cooked.
Make the sauce
Pound the spawn with butter or oil, discarding the coarse outer spawn.
Rub the mixture through a sieve into melted butter and mix until smooth.
Season with cayenne pepper.
Cut the lobster meat into small dice and add to the sauce.
Heat the sauce gently, avoiding boiling to preserve color.
Add a little boiled cream to the sauce before serving.
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.
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Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,050 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
- Hen lobster spawn
- Gives the sauce its rich flavour and characteristic orange-red color.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and softens the sauce's texture before serving.
The step that matters
Heat the sauce gently. Boiling can cause the sauce to break or separate and can dull its color, so it should be heated slowly and kept below a boil.
“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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