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Lobster a la Newburg
Remove a boiled lobster from the shell and slice the meat about one-half inch thick, or cut into small pieces. Put in chafing-dish with a piece of butter the size of a walnut, a little cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice; add 1 cup cream mixed smooth with 1 teaspoonful flour or the yolk of 3 eggs, and stir constantly over a slow fire, but do not boil. Serve in a hot dish.
A chafing-dish recipe built on a cream-and-yolk liaison, which means the whole thing hangs on temperature control. The lobster is already cooked; the only real cooking here is thickening the sauce.
- Never let it boilWith the yolk version, anything above roughly 180F will scramble the eggs and break the sauce. Hold it just below a simmer, stirring, until it coats a spoon. The flour version is more forgiving but still curdles if pushed hard.
- Butter the size of a walnutUsually taken as roughly 1 ounce, or 2 tablespoons, though period usage varies. Nineteenth-century books often measured butter against nuts and eggs.
- The chafing dishA tabletop pan over a spirit lamp, giving very gentle heat. A heavy skillet over low heat works, but a double boiler over barely simmering water is closer to the original behaviour and much harder to ruin.
- Cream, flour, or yolksThe recipe offers two thickeners. One teaspoon of flour in a cup of cream gives a thin, stable sauce; three yolks give a richer one that sets faster and breaks faster. Do not use both.
- Lemon juice and creamAcid, dairy and heat together can split a sauce. Note that the recipe adds the lemon juice at the start, with the butter, before the cream goes in; adding it at the end, off the fire, and sparingly is the safer course.
- Heat the lobster, do not cook itA boiled lobster is done. Two or three minutes in the warm sauce is enough; longer and the meat turns stringy and weeps water into the sauce.
- The missing wineThe classic Newburg generally includes a splash of sherry or Madeira. This one omits it entirely, which is a legitimate variant but leaves the dish notably plainer.
- YieldOne good-sized lobster and a cup of cream serves two as a main course, or four on toast points or in pastry shells.