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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster stock, roux, cream, and diced lobster, finished with butter and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the lobster shell with peppercorns, herbs, and onion in cold water for 40-50 minutes.

  2. Strain and reduce the liquid to ¾ pint.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add white roux to thicken or mix flour and butter.

  2. Stir in boiling cream, cayenne pepper, anchovy essence, and diced lobster flesh.

  3. Add lobster butter or coral and lemon juice; do not boil again.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster shell
Gives the stock its main lobster flavour as it simmers.
White roux
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Lobster butter or coral
Adds concentrated lobster flavour and colour to the finished sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds savoury depth that rounds out the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Do not boil the sauce after adding the lobster butter or coral and lemon juice. Strong heat can curdle the cream and dull the delicate lobster flavour, and it can cause the emulsified butter to separate. Holding the sauce just below boiling keeps it smooth and fresh-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, onion, flour, cream, pepper, anchovy):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, onion, flour, cream, pepper, anchovy. 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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