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Lobster Bisque

A creamy soup made with lobster, milk, water, butter, crackers, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 the lobster

  1. Remove all bits of shell from the lobster and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Combine the cold water, salt, and cayenne pepper in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the lobster and simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the bisque

  1. Heat the milk until scalding in another vessel.

  2. Stir in the pounded cracker and let it sit in hot water for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the butter to the lobster mixture and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

  4. Pour the milk mixture into the lobster mixture. Mix well.

  5. Let it sit in hot water for 5 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen with sliced lemon on the side.

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Lobster + milktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together489 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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 substance of the bisque.
Milk
Forms the creamy base, adding richness and a smooth, body-giving texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Pounded cracker
Acts as a thickener, absorbing liquid and giving the bisque more body.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the lobster mixture. Hot milk poured into a hot mixture can curdle or separate if it is boiling too hard. Keep the heat gentle and stir well so the cream-based soup stays 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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