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Lobster Soup

A creamy lobster soup thickened with biscuits and butter, seasoned with nutmeg, mace, and cayenne, served over small biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace 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 lobsters

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a large handful of coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the lobsters headfirst and boil for at least 30 minutes, or 45 minutes if large.

  3. Remove the lobsters, wipe off any scum, and drain them.

  4. Break off the claws and crack them, then split the bodies and extract the white meat and red coral.

  5. Mash the coral with the back of a spoon, mixing in plenty of sweet oil, and add the chopped lobster meat.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pot, heat 2 quarts of milk and thicken it with the pounded biscuits or grated rolls.

  2. Stir in ¼ pound of fresh butter mixed with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Add the chopped lobster mixture, season with nutmeg, powdered mace, and cayenne, and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes, covered.

  4. Towards the end, stir in 2 beaten eggs.

Serve

  1. Place small biscuits in the bottom of a tureen and pour the soup over them.

  2. Garnish with crushed nasturtium flowers before serving.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + biscuittop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the sweet white meat and red coral that flavour the soup.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup, giving it a creamy body.
Butter biscuits or rolls
Thicken the milk as their starch swells during heating.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Works with the butter to thicken the soup and keep it smooth.
Eggs
Set gently in the hot soup, adding body and richness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs. Beaten eggs can curdle or turn grainy if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stir them in toward the end, off the heat or at a gentle simmer, so they thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, egg, biscuit. 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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