Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Cream

A creamy sauce made with lobster, butter, flour, cream, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the cream mixed with baking soda, stirring constantly.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster meat, salt, red pepper, and mace, stirring for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Stir in the sherry and serve.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and adds richness and smoothness.
Lobster meat
Provides the main flavour and sweet, tender texture.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Slowly add the cream mixed with baking soda, stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour from forming lumps, so the sauce stays smooth as it thickens. Stirring constantly also spreads heat evenly, which helps prevent scorching and curdling on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, lobster, meat, pepper, sherry):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, lobster, meat, pepper, sherry. 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 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes