Why it works: Lobster and meat work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 909 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Pound the lobster spawn with the salt in a mortar.
Chop the white meat of the boiled lobster into very small pieces.
Make and serve the sauce
Mix the lobster paste and chopped meat into the melted butter until well combined and the butter turns red.
Simmer the sauce until hot but do not let it boil.
Serve immediately in a sauce tureen.
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.
-
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 spawn
- Pounded with salt into a paste that gives the sauce its concentrated lobster flavour and colour.
- White meat from boiled lobster
- Chopped finely to add savoury lobster flesh and body to the butter.
- Melted butter
- Carries the lobster flavour and forms the rich, smooth base of the sauce.
The step that matters
Simmer without boiling. Once the sauce is hot, boiling can cause the butter to separate and become greasy, so it should be heated gently only until hot.
“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.
More lobster sauce recipes
You might also like
Lobster Croquettes99 recipes
Meat Croquettes52 recipes
Meatballs37 recipes
Mince Meat37 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.