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Lobster Soup

A soup made with lobster meat, stock, optional shrimp or oysters, anchovy ketchup, lemon juice, butter, flour, and optional tomatoes and pasta.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the lobster by removing the meat from the tail and claws, and reserve the spawn.

  2. Break the shells.

Make the stock

  1. Boil the shells in a little stock for at least an hour.

  2. Strain the soup to remove the shells.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster body meat for thickening.

  2. In a pot, combine the stock with the lobster meat, shrimp or oysters, ketchup, and lemon juice.

  3. If the soup is not thick enough, mix in butter and flour.

  4. Add tomatoes for a thicker soup.

  5. Garnish with Italian pasta or vermicelli.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Lobster + shrimptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

  3. Shrimp + meattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 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

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the meat that makes the soup rich.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the shells.
Butter and flour
Together form a roux that thickens the soup when it is not thick enough.
Anchovy or mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil the shells for at least an hour. The shells must simmer long enough to release their flavour and body into the stock; a short boil leaves the soup thin and weakly flavoured.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, shrimp, meat, anchovy, lemon, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, shrimp, meat, anchovy, lemon, 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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