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Lobster Soup

A veal and lobster broth thickened with butter and flour, flavored with wine, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the veal shin, carrots, onions, pepper, salt, mace, and water in a large pot for 3–4 hours.

  2. Break up the lobster shell and place it in a saucepan with enough water to cover it. Simmer while the soup is boiling.

  3. Strain the lobster shell mixture and return the liquid to the soup pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Chop the lobster meat finely and add it to the soup.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. If available, grate the coral from the lobster and add it to the soup for enhanced appearance.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour together.

  5. Add this mixture to the soup along with the white wine and vinegar or lemon juice.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal shin
Gives the broth its rich, savory body during the long simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the finished soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup when mixed with butter and stirred in.
Lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and tender pieces of meat in the soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour mixed with butter must be added to hot liquid and stirred well, or it clumps instead of thickening the soup evenly. Boiling after adding it also helps the starch fully swell and thicken.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, pepper, lobster, meat, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, pepper, lobster, meat, butter. 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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