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Lobster Soup

A soup made with lobster meat, stock, butter, salt, corn starch, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster shell and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat until boiling.

  2. Add the stock to the pot and bring to a boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture, then add the finely picked lobster meat.

  4. Stir in the corn starch and mace, and boil for an additional 5 minutes.

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. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Lobster + corntop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + macetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together596 recipes

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 flavor and the tender pieces of meat in the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and gelatinizes in hot liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the corn starch and mace, and boil for an additional 5 minutes.. Corn starch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil, and it can clump if dropped in without stirring. Stirring it in evenly and keeping the soup boiling for the full time lets the starch granules swell and set, giving a smooth, lightly thickened soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, corn):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, corn. 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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