Skip to main content
Main

Creamed Lobster a LA New York

A creamy lobster dish with butter, eggs, mustard, milk, and cracker crumbs, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Lobster a LA New York

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the lobster pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, hard-boiled egg yolks, and mustard until smooth.

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Heat the mixture in a chafing dish.

  2. Gradually add the milk and the beaten raw egg yolk.

  3. Stir in the cracker crumbs and lobster pieces.

  4. Toss the mixture with a fork and spoon until thoroughly heated.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into the butter to thicken and give the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Raw egg yolk
Enriches the milk and helps thicken the mixture as it heats.
Rich milk
Supplies liquid that, with the yolks, forms a creamy, loose sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the mixture a light, thickened texture.

The step that matters

Adding the raw egg yolk and milk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or the yolk is added too quickly it can scramble or curdle. Adding the milk and beaten yolk gradually and heating gently keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, egg, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, egg, pepper, milk. 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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes