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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster spawn, meat, anchovy liquor, ketchup, mace, horseradish, lemon, gravy, flour, and butter.

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

Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the spawn from the lobster.

  2. Bruise the spawn finely in a mortar with a little butter.

  3. Extract the meat from the claws and tail.

  4. Cut the meat into small square pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the spawn, lobster meat, anchovy liquor, ketchup, mace, horseradish, lemon half, gravy, and flour (mixed with a little butter) in a saucepan.

  2. Melt the remaining butter and add it to the mixture.

  3. Gently boil the mixture for 6-7 minutes.

  4. Remove the horseradish, mace, and lemon from the sauce.

  5. Squeeze the lemon juice into the sauce and simmer briefly.

  6. Serve the sauce in boats.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Horseradish + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 spawn, giving the sauce its flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavours of the sauce.
Gravy
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gently boil the mixture for 6-7 minutes. Flour thickens only as its starch swells in simmering liquid. Boiling too hard can break the butter emulsion and toughen the delicate lobster meat, so keep the heat gentle.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, ketchup, horseradish, lemon, 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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