Name: Lobster Sauce
Ingredients: lobster meat; 2 anchovies; 2 tablespoons gravy; butter; lemon; salt (optional); ketchup (optional)

Why it works: Lobster and ketchup work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pound the lobster spawn and anchovies together.
Pour 2 tablespoons of gravy over the mixture.

Make the sauce

Strain the mixture into melted butter.
Add the lobster meat and bring to a boil.
Squeeze in lemon juice before serving.

Variation

For a variation, omit the anchovies and gravy, and season with salt and ketchup 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.

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.

Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat: Provides the main seafood flavor and tender bite in the sauce.
Anchovies: Add savory depth and salty, umami richness to the sauce.
Butter: Adds fat, richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Gravy: Supplies liquid and savory body to the pounded mixture.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and seafood flavors.

“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.