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Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from lobster, butter, tomatoes, capsicum, and optional seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Tomato and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster sauce

  1. Remove the gills and coral from the lobster and place them in a mortar.

  2. Add ½ ounce of butter and pound until smooth, then rub through a fine sieve.

  3. Cut the lobster meat into small squares or break it into pieces.

  4. Mix the pounded spawn with melted butter until well combined.

  5. Add the lobster meat and warm gently without boiling to preserve color.

  6. For a variation, use beef or veal gravy instead of butter, adding anchovy, cayenne, catsup, lemon juice, pickle, or wine as desired.

Make the tomato base

  1. Prepare the tomatoes by removing the stalks, halving them, and squeezing out the water and seeds.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, capsicum, and beef gravy, and cook on low heat for an hour until melted.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan, adding white pepper and salt, and simmer for a few minutes.

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. Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Wine + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + capsicumtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster spawn
Pounded into the butter, it gives the sauce its rich colour and flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and body once cooked down and sieved into a smooth base.
Beef gravy
Adds savoury depth and body to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Warm the lobster meat without boiling. Boiling toughens the delicate lobster meat and can dull its colour, so it should only be warmed gently.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, beef, anchovy, wine, tomato, capsicum):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, beef, anchovy, wine, tomato, capsicum. 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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