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Lobster a LA Newburg

Lobster cooked with butter, cream, egg yolk, sherry wine, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 the butter and add the lobster pieces.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make the sauce

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

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

  3. Thicken with heavy cream, then add the egg yolk and sherry wine.

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 and sweet flavor that the sauce carries.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based cream sauce by absorbing liquid as it cooks.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the cream.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to cook the lobster and to build the roux for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk to the cream. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the cream is too hot when it is added, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Adding it off the heat, or with the sauce just warm, keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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