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Lobster Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick out the meat from the boiled lobster and cut it into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, add enough water to just cover the lobster meat and bring to a boil.

  3. Pound the coral with the cream until smooth.

  4. After boiling for 20 minutes, add salt, pepper, mace or cloves, bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, butter, ketchup, and wine.

  5. Stir in the coral and cream mixture briskly to prevent curdling.

  6. If desired, add a few oysters.

  7. Serve the soup over toasted bread.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + ketchuptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, cream, pepper, bread, butter, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, cream, pepper, bread, butter, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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