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Lobster Bisque

A creamy soup made from lobster meat, stock, milk, crackers, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove meat from the lobster and finely chop it.

  2. Pound the crackers in a mortar, then add the lobster meat and stock gradually to form a paste; add the remaining stock.

  3. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter with the flour and pour it over the lobster mixture.

Make the bisque

  1. Add the seasonings to the scalded milk and combine the mixtures.

  2. Cream 1 tablespoon of butter and add the lobster coral, forced through a strainer, until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Add the coral paste bit by bit to the hot soup, stirring with a wire whisk.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 flavour and the tender meat that gives the bisque its body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base, adding richness and a smooth, mellow texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour through the thickened soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.
Crackers
Pounded into the lobster paste, they help bind and thicken the base.
Lobster coral
Adds colour and a concentrated lobster flavour when strained into the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the coral paste to the hot soup. Stirring constantly with a whisk while adding the coral paste bit by bit keeps it dispersed smoothly, so it does not form lumps or curdle in the hot liquid.

“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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