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Bisque of Lobster

A creamy soup made from lobster meat, shell stock, vegetables, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bisque of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the stock

  1. Pick the meat from the lobster.

  2. Break up the shells and place them in a saucepan with the cleaned and sliced vegetables, herbs, salt, cayenne, and lobster coral.

  3. Add 1 quart of water and bring to a boil.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the liquid.

Make the bisque

  1. In a separate pot, melt the butter, add the flour, and cook for 2 minutes.

  2. Gradually whisk in the strained liquid and bring to a simmer.

  3. Stir in the milk and cook until thickened.

  4. Add the lobster meat and heat through 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main sweet, briny flavor and the tender meat added at the end.
Butter
Carries fat and flavor and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Cooked with the butter to form a roux that thickens the bisque.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body and helps thicken the soup as it cooks.
Onion
Builds savory sweetness and depth in the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux. Cooking the butter and flour for the full two minutes removes the raw flour taste and lets the flour thicken smoothly once the liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, celery, carrot, leek, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, celery, carrot, leek, thyme, parsley, pepper. 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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