Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Lobster Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the meat from the lobster shell and chop it finely.
Make the soup
Scald the milk and water in a pot.
Add the chopped lobster, butter, flour, salt, and red pepper to the pot.
Boil for 10 minutes and serve hot.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 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
- Lobster
- Provides the main sweet, briny flavor and the tender bits of meat in the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its body and mouthfeel.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, which carries flavor and smooths the texture.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup a fuller consistency.
The step that matters
Boil for 10 minutes and serve hot. Lobster meat turns firm and rubbery when overcooked, so keep the boil timed and avoid letting the soup boil harder than needed. Flour also needs heat to thicken fully, so the soup should be hot enough to stay smooth.
“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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