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Lobster Soup

A savory soup made with lobster, stock, onions, anchovy, mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, cayenne pepper, egg yolks, flour, sherry, and citrus juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the lobsters.

  2. Break off the claws and fins.

  3. Pound the claws and fins with the anchovy and onions in a mortar.

  4. Add the mixture to the stock and simmer until the flavor is extracted.

  5. Strain the stock.

Prepare the lobster and spawn

  1. Cut the lobster meat into pieces.

  2. Mix the coral with the pieces.

  3. Bruise the spawn with a little flour.

  4. Wet the bruised spawn with strained stock.

  5. Mix the spawn into the rest.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Combine half of the lobster meat and coral with oysters, anchovy, mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, and cayenne.

  2. Pound this mixture with the egg yolks and a little flour to form forcemeat balls.

  3. Fry or brown the balls.

  4. Add the balls directly to the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the remaining lobster meat to the soup and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with lemon or Seville orange juice squeezed in, and add Madeira if desired.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the pounded forcemeat so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Thickens the spawn and helps bind the forcemeat mixture.
Lobster
Provides the main meaty texture and sweet, rich flavor of the soup.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth that rounds out the seafood flavor.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich stock.
Sherry
Adds sweetness and aromatic complexity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Pound the forcemeat with the egg yolks and flour. Egg yolks set when heated and flour absorbs moisture, so the mixture must be worked smooth and evenly combined; otherwise the balls may crumble in the stock or cook unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, lobster, anchovy, onion, oyster, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lobster, anchovy, onion, oyster, nutmeg, lemon. 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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