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Soup

15 Pepper-Pot Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

15 Pepper-Pot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stewpan, combine milk and water with the red pepper and salt, then bring to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the lobster and green inside if desired, along with the butter.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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. Milk + lobstertop 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

Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, mellow body to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the soup.
Lobster
Provides the main flavor and the tender meat of the soup.
Red pepper
Adds warmth, pungency and color to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil for 10 minutes. Lobster meat becomes firm and rubbery when cooked too long at a hard boil. Keep the heat controlled and watch the timing so the lobster stays tender.

“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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