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Cream of Lobster

A creamy soup made with butter, flour, milk, lobster, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Cream of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the shredded lobster and heat through.

  2. Stir in the cream, remove from heat, and serve over toast.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Fat that enriches the base and carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce when cooked briefly with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, giving it a soft, creamy texture.
Shredded lobster
Provides the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, lobster, cream. 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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