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Lobster a LA Newburg

A creamy lobster dish flavored with sherry, sweet cream, and corn starch, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster, cream, and sherry before heating.

  2. Heat the mixture until warmed through.

  3. Add the corn starch and stir until thickened.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Garnish with sliced lemon before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Forms the base of the sauce and adds richness and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream mixture as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the cream.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Add the corn starch and stir until thickened. Cornstarch must be heated to thicken. Stirring keeps it dispersed so it does not clump, and the sauce should be kept simmering gently until it thickens, because it thins again if overheated or left to stand too long.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sherry, cream, corn, pepper. 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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