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Lobster Soup

A soup made with preserved lobster, anchovies, onion, herbs, lemon rind, milk, butter, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine sliced onion, anchovies, chopped herbs, lemon rind, and the liquid from the lobster can with water in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reduces to 1 pint.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add chopped lobster meat, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

  3. Stir in the floured butter.

  4. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the eggs and serve

  1. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  2. Cook the beaten eggs in hot milk for 2 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot milk with eggs into the soup and serve immediately.

  4. Serve with sliced lemon and crackers.

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. Lemon + peppertop 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Preserved lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and the chopped meat in the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and carries the cooked eggs into the soup.
Eggs
Cooked in hot milk, they set and thicken the soup slightly and add body.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the soup and adds richness.
Anchovies
Add a deep savory, salty note to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs in hot milk. Eggs set when heated, so if the milk is too hot or cooked too long they can curdle or turn grainy. Heating them gently in hot milk for a short time keeps the mixture smooth before it joins the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, lemon, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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