Sauce à la Newburg, for Lobster
Compliments of Marshall Thomas
Take a quarter of a pound of melted butter, and a whiskey glass of sherry wine, two yolks of eggs, a little salt and pepper to taste, a little lemon juice and half cupful of sweet cream, mixed well with half teaspoonful of cornstarch. Stir all together well on the fire without allowing it to burn or turn.
A silky, sherried cream sauce built on egg yolks — the classic partner to lobster, thickened just so with a whisper of cornstarch.
- Butter measureA “quarter of a pound” of butter is 1 stick (½ cup, 4 oz), melted.
- “Whiskey glass” of sherryAbout 3 Tbsp (a shot glass); reach for a dry or medium sherry, not the salted “cooking” kind.
- “Sweet cream”Just fresh, unsoured cream — use heavy cream; a “half cupful” is ½ cup.
- Keep the heat gentleYolks and cream curdle if boiled — cook in a double boiler or over the lowest flame, stirring, until it coats the spoon (about 160°F).
- The cornstarch is insuranceSlaked into the cream, that ½ tsp cornstarch stabilizes the custard so the yolks are far less likely to break.
Lobster à la Newburg is one of the grand dishes of the Gilded Age, and its name carries a famous kitchen quarrel. By the often-repeated tradition, it began at Delmonico’s in New York around 1876 as “Lobster à la Wenberg,” after a patron — said to be sea captain Ben Wenberg — who supposedly showed the chef the dish. After a falling-out, the story goes, the restaurant kept the recipe but scrambled the name, reversing Wen to New. Newburg it has been ever since.
From page 27 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
