Name: Lobster-soup
Ingredients: 3 medium lobsters (or 5 small lobsters); 5 pints veal gravy (or beef/mutton stock); 1 anchovy; 1 piece of lemon peel; 2 scalded onions

Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster-soup

Ingredients

3 medium lobsters (or 5 small lobsters)
5 pints veal gravy (or beef/mutton stock)
1 anchovy
1 piece of lemon peel
2 scalded onions

Directions

Prepare

Boil the lobsters and set aside.

Make the soup

In a mortar, bruise the small claws and fins with the anchovy, lemon peel, and scalded onions.
Add this mixture to the stock and simmer to extract flavor.
Strain the stock 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.

Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Anchovy + oniontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,263 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + anchovytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together456 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters: Provide the main flavor and the meat that gives the soup its character.
Veal gravy: Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the other ingredients.
Anchovy: Adds a savory depth to the stock without tasting strongly of fish.
Lemon peel: Adds bright aromatic oil that lifts the flavor of the stock.

“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.