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Sauce

Sauce for Lobsters, Sfc.

A sauce made from hard-boiled eggs, fish inner part, mustard, olive oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Lobsters, Sfc.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bruise the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with a spoon.

  2. Pound the bruised yolks in a mortar with a little water and the soft inner part and spawn of the fish.

  3. Rub the mixture smooth with the mustard, olive oil, and vinegar.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks form the body of the sauce, thickening it into a smooth, rich emulsion.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and helps bind the oil and vinegar into a stable emulsion.
Olive oil
Provides fat that gives the sauce a silky, rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture smooth. Yolks must be worked thoroughly with the mustard before the oil and vinegar are added. Well-broken-down yolks emulsify with the fat, while lumps left behind keep the sauce grainy and prevent it from thickening evenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, fish, olive, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, fish, olive, vinegar, pepper. 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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