Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Sauce

A sauce made from boiled lobster coral and spawn, butter, water or vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and optional lobster meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Lobster Sauce

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coral butter

  1. Combine the coral and spawn of the boiled lobster with 1 tablespoon of butter in a mortar and pound to a smooth mass.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt ¼ pound of sweet butter with ⅓ cup of water or vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of mustard, then stir in the coral and spawn mixture along with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Stir until smooth and serve.

  4. Optionally stir in chopped fine lobster meat.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coral and spawn
Provides the rich lobster flavour and the orange colour of the sauce.
Sweet butter
Forms the body of the sauce and carries fat-soluble flavour.
Water or vinegar
Thins the melted butter and adds a slight sharpness that balances the richness.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and aroma that cut through the butter.
Lobster meat
Adds texture and fresh lobster flavour when stirred in as an optional extra.

The step that matters

Stir the coral mixture in gently over heat until smooth. Coral and butter emulsify best when the butter is melted but not boiling. If the mixture is overheated or stirred too hard, the butterfat can separate and leave the sauce greasy rather than smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, vinegar, pepper, meat. 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.

More lobster sauce recipes

Newburg 3 See all 230 →

You might also like

Lobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes