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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made with lobster meat, butter, anchovy sauce, cream, and seasonings, simmered gently to preserve color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster shells and cut it into small square pieces.

  2. Place the spawn from under the lobster's tail in a mortar with 1 ounce of butter and pound it smooth.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt ½ cup of butter and mix in all ingredients except the lobster meat.

  2. Add the lobster meat and heat thoroughly without boiling to maintain color.

Garnish

  1. For garnish, save a little of the spawn (dried and sieved) if serving with turbot or brill.

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 + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hen lobster
Supplies the meat and roe that give the sauce its main flavor and color.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a savory, salty depth that sharpens the lobster flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, looser body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the lobster gently without boiling. Boiling can make the butter and cream separate and can toughen the lobster meat, dulling the sauce's color and texture. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and the meat tender.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, anchovy, sauce, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, sauce, cream. 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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