Why it works: Lobster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Another Lobster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lobster butter
Dry the lobster shell in the oven for a short time.
Pound the dried shell with 1 ounce of butter.
Place the mixture in a small saucepan with a little water over low heat.
Shake the saucepan until the butter turns red.
Strain the mixture through a coarse cloth over a bowl of cold water, pressing down with a spoon.
Once the butter has set, use it for your sauce.
Variation
Substitute ordinary stock for the lobster shell stock.
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.
-
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster shell
- Gives the sauce its characteristic lobster flavour and red colour when heated with fat.
- Butter
- Carries the fat-soluble flavour and colour from the shell and adds richness and a smooth body.
- Ordinary stock
- Replaces the lobster shell stock as the liquid and savoury base of the sauce.
The step that matters
Shake the saucepan until the butter turns red. Gentle low heat lets the red pigment from the shell dissolve into the butter. Overheating can scorch the butter and brown its milk solids, giving a bitter taste.
“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
You might also like
Lobster Croquettes99 recipes
Lobster Balls7 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.