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Lobster Newberg (also spelled Lobster Newburg or Lobster Newburgh) is an
American seafood dish made from
lobster,
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condimen ...
,
cream
Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...
,
cognac
Cognac ( , also , ) is a variety of brandy named after the commune of Cognac, France. It is produced in the surrounding wine-growing region in the departments of Charente and Charente-Maritime.
Cognac production falls under French appella ...
,
sherry
Sherry ( es, jerez ) is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versi ...
, and
eggs, with a secret ingredient found to be
Cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper is a type of '' Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...
.
A modern legend with no primary or early sources states that the dish was invented by Ben Wenberg, a sea captain in the fruit trade. He was said to have demonstrated the dish at
Delmonico's Restaurant
Delmonico's is the name of a series of restaurants that operated in New York City, with the present version located at 56 Beaver Street in the Financial District of Manhattan. The original version was widely recognized as the United States ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
to the manager, Charles Delmonico, in 1876. After refinements by the
chef,
Charles Ranhofer
Charles Ranhofer (November 7, 1836 in Saint-Denis, France – October 9, 1899 in New York) was the chef at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York from 1862 to 1876 and 1879 to 1896. Ranhofer was the author of ''The Epicurean'' (1894),Charles Ranhof ...
, the creation was added to the restaurant's
menu as ''Lobster à la Wenberg'' and it soon became very popular.
The legend says that an argument between Wenberg and Charles Delmonico caused the dish to be removed from the menu. To satisfy patrons’ continued requests for it, the name was rendered in
anagram ''Lobster à la Newberg'' or ''Lobster Newberg''.
However, as culinary historian Jan Whitaker has written, lobster newberg is merely the addition of lobster to a French-inspired sauce of a type already common in 1870s American cuisine. No clear process of invention took place. Early mentions of the dish in American periodicals spell it both "Newberg" and "Newburg," without referring to any specific person or location for which it had been named. Among the many surviving Delmonico's menus from the late Nineteenth Century, none include a dish described as "Lobster Wenberg."
It is still quite popular and is found in
French cookbooks. When Ranhofer's printed recipe first appeared in 1894, the lobsters were boiled fully twenty-five minutes, then fried in clarified butter, then simmered in cream while it reduced by half, then brought again to the boil after the addition of
Madeira.
Similar dishes
Lobster Newberg is related to
Lobster Thermidor
Lobster Thermidor is a French dish of lobster meat cooked in a rich wine sauce, stuffed back into a lobster shell, and browned. The sauce is often a mixture of egg yolks and brandy (such as Cognac), served with an oven-browned cheese crust, typica ...
, a similar dish, first appearing in the 1890s, that involves lobster meat cooked with eggs, cognac, and sherry.
See also
*
List of seafood dishes
This is a list of notable seafood dishes. Seafood dishes are food dishes which use seafood (fish, shellfish or seaweed) as primary ingredients, and are ready to be served or eaten with any needed preparation or cooking completed. Many fish or ...
*
Lobster bisque
Bisque is a smooth, creamy, highly seasoned soup of French origin, classically based on a strained broth ( coulis) of crustaceans. It can be made from lobster, langoustine, crab, shrimp or crayfish. Alongside chowder, bisque is one of the most ...
Lobster bisque recipe
References
{{reflist
Bibliography
*
Mariani, John F. ''Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink'', 1999. New York: Lebhar-Friedman. Pages 187–8.
*Townsend, Elizabeth. ''Lobster: A Global History''. (2011). London: Reaktion Books. 57–58.
Lobster dishes
American seafood dishes