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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster spawn, meat, anchovy liquor, ketchup, mace, horseradish, lemon, gravy, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the spawn from the lobster.

  2. Bruise the spawn in a mortar with a little butter.

  3. Extract the meat from the claws and tail. Cut the meat into small square pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the spawn, lobster meat, anchovy liquor, ketchup, mace, horseradish, lemon half, and gravy.

  2. Add a little butter rolled in flour to thicken the sauce.

  3. Melt the butter. Add the melted butter to the mixture.

  4. Gently boil the mixture for 6-7 minutes.

  5. Remove the horseradish, mace, and lemon. Squeeze the lemon juice into the sauce. Simmer briefly.

  6. Serve in boats.

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 + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ketchup + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat and flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, rolled in flour, thickens it.
Gravy
Adds body and savoury depth to the liquid base.
Anchovy liquor
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Add the butter rolled in flour to thicken the sauce. Flour coated in butter disperses into the hot liquid and swells as it heats, thickening the sauce. Added directly or unevenly, it clumps; whisking it in while the liquid is hot and then boiling gently lets the starch cook fully and the sauce thicken smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, anchovy, ketchup, horseradish, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, ketchup, horseradish, lemon. 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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