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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made with lobster, gravy, butter, anchovies, flour, lemon, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster into dice-sized pieces.

  2. Pound the spawn, butter, and anchovies in a mortar, then rub through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the cut lobster and gravy.

  2. Add butter rolled in flour and stir over heat until boiling.

  3. If not thick enough, add flour and water, then boil again.

  4. Add the spawn and simmer without boiling to preserve color.

  5. Stir in lemon pickle and squeeze in half a lemon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Lobster + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Lobster
Provides the main meat and body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms a thickening roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the butter and liquid.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and saltiness to the pounded spawn mixture.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Add the spawn and simmer without boiling. Boiling after the spawn is added can curdle or dull its delicate color and flavor, so the sauce should only simmer gently once it is added.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour. 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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