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Bisque of Lobster

A creamy lobster bisque made with lobster, milk, water, crackers, butter, cayenne, salt, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Bisque of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the gills and soft parts from the lobster and pound them into a paste.

  2. Simmer the paste in boiling water for 5 minutes, then strain it back into the water.

  3. Cut the remaining lobster meat into dice and place it in a saucepan with the rolled crackers.

Make the bisque

  1. Pour the strained lobster water over the mixture and bring to a boil.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, salt, and butter, then simmer covered for 30 minutes, ensuring it does not scorch.

  3. In another vessel, heat the milk with a pinch of baking soda.

  4. After the lobster mixture is in the serving tureen, pour in the hot milk.

  5. Serve with sliced lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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 diced meat that gives the bisque body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the broth slightly as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering covered without scorching. Milk proteins and starches in the thickened mixture can stick and burn on the bottom of the pan. Gentle, covered simmering with frequent stirring keeps heat even and prevents a scorched taste.

“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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