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Lobster Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, carrots, onions, lobster meat, and seasonings, simmered for several hours.

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. Combine veal, carrots, onions, pepper, salt, mace, and water in a large pot and boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Add the broken lobster shell and enough water to cover it in a separate saucepan and simmer while the soup boils.

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

Finish the soup

  1. Finely chop the lobster meat, add it to the soup, and boil for an additional 2 hours.

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

  3. In a small bowl, mix butter and flour until smooth, then stir the mixture into the soup.

  4. Add white wine and vinegar or lemon juice to the soup, stirring well before serving.

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
Releases gelatin and body into the broth during long simmering, giving it richness.
Lobster
Contributes its sweet, distinctive flavor to the soup and its shell adds depth to the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is stirred in with the butter.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour into the soup. Flour clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Blending it smoothly with butter first lets it disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

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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