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Lobster and Crab Sauce

A buttery sauce made with lobster or crab meat, seasoned with cayenne pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lobster and Crab Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Finely chop the meat of the boiled lobster or crab and add it to the melted butter.

  3. Season with Cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. If using raw lobster, remove the benies or spawn, mash them in a little cold water, and add to the sauce.

  5. Boil the mixture briefly until it turns a bright red.

Serve

  1. Serve as a sauce for seafood.

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. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth body as it melts.
Lobster or crab meat
Supplies the main seafood flavour and the sweet, tender texture of the sauce.
Benies or spawn
Adds concentrated roe flavour and colour when used from raw lobster.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture briefly until it turns a bright red. Boiling only briefly is enough to cook the shellfish and bring out its colour; boiling too long can toughen the meat and make the butter separate, so watch it closely.

“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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