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Lobster Bisque

A creamy soup made with lobster, milk, butter, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lobster Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coral paste

  1. Rub the coral and a quarter of the lobster meat to a paste; cover with boiling water and let sit for 30 minutes.

Cook the bisque

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped lobster, cracker crumbs, and half the butter.

  2. Stir in the hot water and the coral mixture.

  3. Cook gently in a double boiler for 30 minutes, stirring often.

Finish and serve

  1. In another saucepan, heat the milk with a pinch of baking soda and the remaining butter mixed with flour; boil for 1 minute.

  2. Pour the lobster mixture into a tureen and stir in the hot milk; serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Lobster meat
Provides the main seafood flavor and tender body of the bisque.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and sweetness, softening the bisque's texture.
Cracker crumbs
Thicken the mixture and give body as they absorb liquid.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture, giving the finish more body.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk and butter-flour mixture for 1 minute. Flour thickens only when it reaches a boil and is held there briefly, so the starch swells fully. Skipping this leaves the bisque thin and pasty-tasting.

“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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