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Lobster Soup

A creamy soup made with lobster, stock, milk, egg yolks, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the stock and canned lobster.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a simmer.

  3. Whisk together the egg yolks and add to the pot.

  4. Season with parsley, pepper, and salt.

  5. Mix flour and butter to create a paste, then stir into the soup to thicken.

  6. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add richness and a silky body as they gently set.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a paste and stirred in.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps form the flour paste that thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the soup base.
Lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and substance of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Whisk them well and add them off the boil or with the soup only just simmering, so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, milk, egg, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, egg, pepper, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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