Why it works: Sauce and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Remove the carapace from the lobster, wash it, and pound it with the butter.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Remove the meat from the tail and claws of the lobster, and cut it into small pieces.
Make and serve the sauce
Warm the Bechamel sauce, then add the carapace-butter mixture and mix well.
Add the lobster pieces, warm thoroughly, season to taste, and serve.
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.
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Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bechamel sauce
- Forms the creamy base that carries the lobster flavour through the sauce.
- Lobster
- Supplies the main flavour and the tender pieces of meat in the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries the flavour of the pounded lobster shell into the sauce.
The step that matters
Rubbing the shell mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes shell fragments and fibres so the sauce stays smooth, while the flavour from the pounded shell and butter passes through into the sauce.
“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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