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Sauce for Lobster

A creamy sauce made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, lobster meat, mustard, oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and salt.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with water until smooth.

  2. Add the soft inside and spawn of the lobster, and mix until well combined.

  3. Stir in the mustard, salad oil, and vinegar.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together692 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs
Yolks are pounded smooth to form the thick, creamy base of the sauce.
Lobster spawn
Adds rich lobster flavour and colour to the sauce.
Soft inside of lobster
Adds concentrated lobster flavour and body to the sauce.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Salad oil
Adds fat that emulsifies with the yolks, giving a smooth, rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the oil and vinegar gradually. Oil added too quickly to egg yolk can break the emulsion, leaving the sauce oily and separated. Adding it slowly while mixing keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lobster, 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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