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Lobster a la Newburg
2 small lobsters 1 cup cream 4 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons brandy and sherry Yolks of 4 eggs 1 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Few grains mace Cut the lobster meat into small pieces, cook them slowly in butter for five minutes, add the seasonings, brandy and sherry, and simmer five minutes longer. Combine the cream with the beaten yolks and pour slowly into the cooking mixture. Stir constantly for one and one-half minutes. Garnish with triangles of puff paste.
A classic chafing-dish sauce that lives or dies on temperature control. Everything else here is a matter of translating a 1910 ingredient list.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe four yolks thicken the cream into a custard, and above roughly 180F they curdle into scrambled egg in liquid. Pull the pan off direct heat before the yolk-cream mixture goes in, stir constantly, and stop the moment it coats the spoon. The recipe's minute and a half is about right over gentle heat; a double boiler makes it forgiving.
- How much lobster"2 small lobsters" in this period most likely means two chicken lobsters of about 1 to 1 1/4 lb each, boiled, which together yield roughly 1/2 to 2/3 lb of picked meat. Cooked lobster meat bought by weight is a direct substitute.
- The lobster is already cookedThe lobster is probably already cooked -- The recipe starts from picked meat, which implies the lobster has already been boiled, so the five minutes in butter is largely warming and flavoring. Overheated lobster tightens and turns cottony, so keep the butter barely bubbling and treat the second five minutes as an infusion rather than a hard simmer.
- Brandy and sherry"2 tablespoons brandy and sherry" is ambiguous in the original; contemporary versions of the dish generally use a tablespoon of each, or two tablespoons of each for a more assertive sauce. Dry or medium sherry, not cream sherry.
- CreamUse heavy cream, 36% or above. Modern half-and-half or light cream has less fat to buffer the yolks and will break more readily.
- MaceGround mace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sharp than nutmeg itself. Still sold, though often only in the baking aisle; a smaller pinch of grated nutmeg stands in.
- Puff paste trianglesFrozen puff pastry, cut into triangles and baked at 400F until risen and dry through, does the job. Bake them before the sauce, since the sauce will not wait.
- Yield and servingServes four as a first course or three as a light main dish. Serve immediately over toast points, in pastry shells, or with rice; reheating splits the sauce.
Lobster Newburg is generally traced to Delmonico's in New York in the 1870s, where it is said to have been introduced by a sea captain and shipping merchant named Ben Wenberg and served as Lobster "a la Wenberg" until a falling-out with the management prompted the kitchen to scramble the name into Newburg. The story is traditional rather than documented, and the dish's later career is likewise more often asserted than shown: by the time this cookbook appeared, cream-and-yolk lobster is said to have escaped the restaurant and become a showpiece of the American chafing dish, a supper cooked at the table over a spirit lamp. That context explains the very short cooking times and the puff-paste garnish prepared in advance.