Name: Lobster Soup
Ingredients: equal parts fish broth and white stock; roux; salt to taste; red pepper to taste; Harvey sauce to taste; lobster meat, diced; lobster claws and upper shell, pounded and sieved; sherry wine; croutons

Why it works: Sauce and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Combine equal parts fish broth and white stock in a pot.
Thicken with roux and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.
Season with salt, red pepper, and Harvey sauce.
In a soup tureen, place diced lobster meat and the pounded lobster shell mixture.
Add the strained soup and a glass of sherry wine.
Serve with croutons.

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.

Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together479 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Fish + lobstertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together326 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).