Skip to main content
Main

Lobster a LA Newburg

A lobster dish served with a cream sauce made from butter, heavy cream, egg yolk, sherry wine, and flour.

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

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut the lobster into pieces about the size of a hickory nut.

  2. In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add the lobster pieces.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken with 1 cup of heavy cream.

  2. Stir in the yolk of one egg and 2 ounces of sherry wine.

  3. For the cream sauce, melt 1 ounce of butter in a saucepan.

  4. Mix in 2 ounces of flour and thin down to the proper consistency with boiling cream.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque when cooked gently in butter.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, and thickens into a smooth sauce with the egg yolk.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smooth, glossy body.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the cream sauce its body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and sherry to the cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot, so keep the heat low and stir steadily while adding it.

“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 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes