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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from boiled lobster meat, butter, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the coral and spawn of the boiled lobster into a mortar and pound to a smooth paste.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the vinegar and prepared mustard.

  3. Stir in the coral and spawn, salt, and pepper, mixing until smooth.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  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 coral and spawn
Adds rich lobster flavor and the sauce's orange color.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and cuts the richness of the butter.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps hold the butter and vinegar together as an emulsion.

The step that matters

Stir in the coral and spawn until smooth. Butter sauces are emulsions of fat and liquid. The lobster paste must be fully blended into the warm mixture so it stays smooth rather than grainy or separated. Mustard helps keep the emulsion stable.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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