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Lobster Niewburg

A lobster dish cooked in butter, sherry, brandy, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lobster Niewburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the shells of the lobsters and cut it into delicate slices.

Cook and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the lobster and cook for 4 to 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the salt, pepper, nutmeg, sherry, and brandy.

  4. Mix the cream with the beaten egg yolks and add to the lobster mixture.

  5. Serve as soon as the eggs thicken the sauce.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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, delicate flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the dish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the body of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat, giving the sauce its silky body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as the eggs thicken the sauce. Egg yolks set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it overheats. Serving once it has thickened keeps it smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, pepper, sherry, wine, brandy, cream. 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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