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Lobster a LA Newburg

A creamy lobster dish with eggs, cream, butter, flour, spices, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Press the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs through a sieve and mix with ½ cup of cream until smooth.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Add the egg mixture and ¾ cup of cream to the pan, cooking until smooth and thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the minced lobster, nutmeg, salt, and paprika.

  2. Just before serving, add the sherry.

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.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Lobster
Provides the main flavor and tender, meaty texture that the sauce carries.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with the cream.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg and cream mixture until smooth and thick. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can curdle or turn grainy if overheated, so keep the heat moderate and stir constantly while the sauce thickens.

“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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