Newburg Sauce

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •30 cm / 12-inch heavy sauté pan with a tight-fitting lid
• •3-litre / 3-quart saucepan
• •Fine-mesh sieve
• •Mortar and pestle or mini food processor
• •Heavy chef's knife, rimmed cutting board, lobster crackers, and picks
• •Instant-read thermometer
• •Long lighter and a fireproof lid for flambéing

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the lobsters

   Keep the lobsters cold until the pan and every ingredient are ready. The cleanest home arrangement is to ask the fishmonger to dispatch and quarter them just before collection, wrapping the internal coral and creamy portions separately. If doing the work yourself, chill the lobsters for twenty minutes, then dispatch each decisively with a heavy chef's knife. Split it lengthwise, cut each half crosswise between body and tail, and crack each claw once so the sauce can reach the meat. Lift the dark internal coral and clean creamy portions into a chilled bowl. Discard the stomach sac, feathery gills, and intestinal vein.

   Tell the fishmonger this is the raw-lobster first method and that the internal coral must be saved. An externally berried lobster stays in the sea; the coral wanted here is inside the body.
2. 2

   Pound the coral butter

   Work the reserved coral and creamy portions with the softened 1/2 cup butter in a mortar or small processor until completely smooth, scraping down the bowl several times. No visible lumps should remain, because each lump will set into a grain when heated. Keep the coral butter cool but pliable while the lobster cooks. This is the liaison, and it goes into the sauce only at the finish.

3. 3

   Fry the lobster hard

   Mix the salt and cayenne, season the lobster pieces with about two-thirds of it, and reserve the rest. Heat half the frying butter and half the oil in a wide sauté pan over medium-high heat until the butter's foam subsides. Add half the lobster without crowding and fry hard, turning the pieces until every shell is a fine, vivid red and the cut surfaces take light bronze colour, about five to seven minutes. Repeat with the remaining butter, oil, and lobster. The lobster need not be cooked through yet; the purpose is colour, shell flavour, and a real fond on the pan floor.

   Crowding traps liquid and turns frying into poaching. Two batches take a few minutes more and give the sauce the shell fond it needs.
4. 4

   Drain and flambé

   Move the lobster to a tray and pour every drop of frying fat from the pan, leaving the brown glaze attached to its floor. Return all the lobster pieces. Turn off the burner and extractor fan, clear anything flammable from the stove, and keep the pan lid beside you. Add the brandy off the heat, move the bottle well away, then return the pan to medium heat and ignite the alcohol at the far edge with a long lighter. Let the flame die naturally. This is the source's burnt brandy: flamed cleanly, never scorched. If it does not catch after one safe attempt, stop striking matches and simmer the brandy until its raw alcoholic smell disappears.

   Never pour brandy directly from its bottle into a hot pan. Measure it first, add it off the burner, and smother an unruly flame with the lid.
5. 5

   Reduce the Marsala

   When the flame is gone, add the Marsala and scrape the pan floor thoroughly so every trace of fond enters the wine. Simmer briskly until the Marsala has reduced by two-thirds, from 1 2/3 cups to roughly 1/2 cup, about eight to twelve minutes in a wide pan. Tilt the pan occasionally to judge the liquid beneath the lobster pieces. It should smell rounded and nutty, with no sharp alcohol, and look lightly syrupy without going dry. This reduction is the dish, not scaffolding.

6. 6

   Simmer with fumet

   Pour in the heavy cream and fish fumet, then tuck in the bouquet garni. Bring the liquid only to a bare simmer, cover tightly, and cook gently for twenty-five minutes. The surface should tremble under the lid, never churn. If the cream rises or boils hard, pull the pan from the burner, lower the heat, and continue once it settles. It will look pale and loose at this stage. That is exactly right.

7. 7

   Strain and shell

   Set a fine-mesh sieve over a clean saucepan and drain the entire pan through it, letting the sauce pass without crushing the shells. Discard the bouquet garni. When the lobster pieces are cool enough to handle, remove the tail, claw, and knuckle meat and cut it into generous 3/4-inch (2 cm) cubes. Keep the meat covered. The source also permits leaving the meat in larger pieces and arranging it over the fish rather than folding it into the finished sauce.

8. 8

   Bind without boiling

   Set the strained sauce over low heat and bring it to about 170°F (77°C). Whisk in the coral butter a small piece at a time, allowing each addition to disappear before adding the next. Hold the sauce between 175 and 180°F (79 and 82°C) for two minutes, whisking steadily, so the raw coral cooks and turns the sauce coral-gold. Do not let it boil. The liaison is ready when the sauce coats a spoon in a glossy, even layer. If it turns grainy or shows beads of butter, remove it from the heat and whisk in the cold cream one teaspoon at a time. If needed, pass it through the clean sieve and blend briefly. Ça se rattrape.

   Do every reduction before the coral butter enters. Boiling afterward will not make Newburg smoother or thicker; it sets the coral too hard and separates the cream.
9. 9

   Finish and serve

   Fold in the cubed lobster and warm it for two to three minutes without approaching a simmer. Taste, then adjust with the reserved salt and cayenne until the sauce tastes of lobster first, Marsala second, and cayenne only as a quiet warmth. Spoon Newburg immediately over poached turbot, sole, or another simply cooked fish, or arrange the lobster meat on the fish and pour the sauce around it as the source allows. À table!

Chef Tips

• •No coral, no raw-lobster first method. Don't disguise the absence with egg yolks; that belongs to another Newburg formula. Ask the fishmonger before buying and have the coral packed with the raw lobster pieces.
• •Use a light, unsalted fish fumet, the concentrated fish essence named by the source. A salty packaged seafood broth grows harsh beside the reduced Marsala and overwhelms the lobster.
• •Choose dry Marsala with a nutty backbone, not a sweet cooking wine. The source permits aged dry Sherry as its honest alternative, and a dry oloroso works well.
• •Butter and heavy cream, not substitutes. The liaison depends on their fat and water holding together with the coral; margarine and reduced-fat cream separate and taste thin. We don't apologize for butter.
• •Newburg wants a quiet fish beneath it, not a strongly seasoned preparation competing for attention. Poached turbot or sole is enough. Pour a firm dry white Burgundy or Champagne alongside.

Advance Preparation

• •Make the fish fumet up to two days ahead and keep it cold, or freeze it for up to one month. Bring it to a simmer before beginning the sauce.
• •The recipe can be completed through straining and shelling up to four hours ahead. Cool the sauce base quickly over ice, refrigerate it separately from the lobster meat, and keep the raw coral butter cold. Reheat the base gently before making the liaison.
• •Do not add the coral butter until shortly before serving. Finished Newburg holds for about twenty minutes over the gentlest water bath, but it must never boil and does not freeze well.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 60g)