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Lobster Soup, or Bisque

A rich soup made from veal broth, lobster meat, and coral, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster Soup, or Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the veal in enough water to cover it until the meat is reduced to shreds, then strain the broth.

  2. Boil the lobster, extract the meat from the body and claws, and bruise part of the coral in a mortar.

Make the force-meat balls

  1. Mix the bruised coral with an equal quantity of lobster meat, adding mace, cayenne, salt, and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into force-meat balls, binding with the beaten egg yolk.

Make and serve the bisque

  1. In a pot, combine 3 quarts of veal broth with the lobster meat cut into mouthfuls and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Thicken the soup with the remaining coral rubbed through a sieve, then add the force-meat balls and a little butter rolled in flour.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes without boiling to preserve the color.

  4. Serve with small dice of bread fried brown in butter.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Veal
Long boiling reduces the meat to shreds, giving the broth body and rich flavor.
Lobster
Provides the main shellfish flavor and tender meat for the soup and force-meat balls.
Lobster coral
Colors the soup and, rubbed through a sieve, thickens it with a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the force-meat mixture so the balls hold their shape when cooked.
Butter and flour
A butter-flour paste thickens the soup and adds richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling after the coral is added can dull its color and toughen the delicate lobster meat and force-meat balls, so the soup should only be kept at a gentle simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lobster, pepper, egg, butter, flour, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lobster, pepper, egg, butter, flour, bread. 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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