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
Remove the spawn from under the tail of a live hen lobster and pound it in a mortar with the coarse sea salt.
Chop the white meat of the boiled lobster into very small pieces.
Melt the butter until it is not too thick.
Make the sauce
Stir in the pounded spawn and chopped lobster meat until well mixed and the butter turns a fine red.
Keep the mixture simmering until it is hot enough to almost boil.
Serve
Pour the mixture into a sauce tureen and serve immediately.
Do not let the sauce boil or stand in the saucepan to preserve flavor and color.
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.
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Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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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
- Adds rich lobster flavour and the bright red colour that tints the butter.
- Butter
- Carries the flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rich body.
- White lobster meat
- Supplies the sweet, firm texture that gives the sauce its substance.
The step that matters
Keep the sauce below boiling. Boiling can make the butter separate and the delicate lobster proteins toughen, dulling both flavour and colour. Leaving the sauce standing in the hot pan lets it overcook.
“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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