Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Newburg

A lobster dish with butter, sherry, egg yolks, cream, salt, and paprika, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the lobster meat, salt, and paprika, and cook gently for 5 to 10 minutes.

  3. Pour in the sherry wine and let it simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and cream together until light.

  2. Add the egg and cream mixture to the lobster, stirring carefully until thickened.

  3. Serve immediately on hot toast.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, delicate flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the yolks form a silky, smooth sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to cook the lobster gently in the skillet.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the heat is too high or stirring is rough, they can scramble and curdle. Stir carefully over gentle heat until the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes