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Salpicon of Lobster

A sauce of lobster, mushrooms, and truffle in butter, flour, cream, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salpicon of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the cream and white stock.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Cook until the mixture thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped lobster, mushrooms, and truffle.

  2. Serve in lobster claws or shells.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with butter to form a roux that sets the texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
White stock
Supplies liquid and savoury depth to the sauce.
Lobster
Provides the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the salpicon.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft, moist texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Flour must cook long enough in the butter-based sauce to thicken fully and lose its raw starchy taste. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce with a floury flavour.

“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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