Name: Lobster a LA Newburg
Ingredients: 1 freshly boiled lobster; 1 tablespoon butter; Coarse sea salt to taste; Red pepper to taste; 1 medium-sized truffle, cut into small pieces; ½ cup Madeira wine; 3 egg yolks; ½ pint sweet cream

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 Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Split the lobster and remove the meat from the shell, cutting it into 1-inch pieces.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the lobster meat.
Season with coarse sea salt and red pepper, then add the truffle pieces.
Cook for 5 minutes, then add the Madeira wine and reduce by half, about 3 minutes.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sweet cream together.
Add the egg mixture to the lobster and gently stir until it thickens.

Serve

Pour into a hot tureen and 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.

Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Truffle + madeira winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together195 recipes
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 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: Provides the main body of the dish, with sweet, tender meat that is cooked gently in the sauce.
Egg yolks: Thicken the cream into a smooth sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Sweet cream: Adds richness and moisture, and combines with the yolks to form a silky sauce.
Butter: Adds fat and flavour, helping to coat the lobster pieces and carry the taste of the dish.
Madeira wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour as it reduces, sweetening and concentrating the sauce.
Truffle: Adds a rich, earthy aroma that perfumes the sauce and lobster.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the lobster. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the heat is too high they can curdle and turn grainy. Stir gently over low heat so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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Lobster a LA Newburg