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Lobster K LA Delmonico

A lobster dish cooked in butter, flour, cayenne, nutmeg, cream, egg yolks, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 K LA Delmonico

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove lobster meat from shell and cut into small cubes.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pan, then add flour, cayenne, nutmeg, and cream gradually.

  2. Add the lobster meat and heat through.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and sherry wine until combined.

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. Lobster + creamtop 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Lobster
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavor.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and richness.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce.
Thin cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks and sherry wine until combined.. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Remove the pan from direct heat before stirring them in so the sauce stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, cream, egg, sherry, wine. 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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