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Lobster a LA Newbury

A creamy lobster dish with sherry and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 Newbury

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Bring water to a boil in a fish pan.

  2. Heat the cream in a chafing dish until thoroughly heated.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks to the cream, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the lobster and sherry, and heat through.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Lobster + sherrytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 body and flavour of the dish, heated through gently at the end.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a smooth sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Cream
Forms the rich base of the sauce and carries the thickened egg yolks.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the cream. Egg yolks can scramble if the cream is too hot or the mixture is not stirred constantly. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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