Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the spawn butter
Cut the lobster into dice-sized pieces.
Combine the lobster spawn, butter, and anchovies in a mortar.
Pound and strain through a fine sieve.
Make the sauce
Combine the lobster pieces with stock and flour-coated butter in a stewpan; stir over heat until boiling.
If the sauce is not thick enough, add a little flour mixed with water and boil again.
Add the lobster spawn and simmer gently, avoiding boiling to preserve color.
Stir in lemon pickle and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Lobster + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,034 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and carries the flavour of the spawn, giving it richness.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a sauce as it heats with the butter.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the flour thickens.
- Anchovies
- Add a savoury, salty depth that complements the lobster.
- Lobster spawn
- Gives the sauce its colour and rich, concentrated lobster flavour.
The step that matters
Keep the sauce below boiling once the spawn is added. Gentle simmering preserves the bright colour of the lobster spawn, which can dull or turn grey with prolonged or vigorous boiling. Boiling can also cause the flour-thickened sauce to break or become lumpy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, 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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