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Bisque of Lobster

A creamy soup made from lobster, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Bisque of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Cut the tender portions of the lobster into tiny cubes, about 1 cup.

  2. Put the remainder of the lobster into the water and cook for 20 minutes, adding more water as it boils away.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pan, cook the flour and butter together, then add the milk and stir until smooth.

  2. Add the salt, cayenne pepper, and white pepper to the mixture.

  3. Strain in the lobster liquor and cook for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place the diced lobster into a tureen and strain the boiling soup over them.

  2. 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 + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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
Provides the main flavour and the tender pieces that give the bisque its body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich base when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when cooked with the flour.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup, giving it smoothness and mild sweetness.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the rich, creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the flour and butter. Cooking the flour and butter together first forms a roux. Adding milk to it while stirring keeps lumps from forming and gives the soup a smooth, thickened texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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