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Lobster Soup

A soup made with lobster meat, cream, milk, butter, and seasonings, finished with forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the meat from the lobsters and pound the fins, chine, and small claws in a mortar, discarding the brown fin and the bag in the head.

  2. Combine the lobster meat, bread crumbs, anchovies, onions, herbs, lemon peel, and water in a stewpan; simmer gently until the flavors are extracted.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Make the soup

  1. Pound the lobster spawn with butter, nutmeg, and flour in a mortar; mix in the cream and milk.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil; add the lobster tails cut into pieces.

Make the forcemeat and serve

  1. Make forcemeat balls from the remaining lobster, season with mace, pepper, and salt, add a little flour and bread crumbs, and moisten with the egg.

  2. Heat the forcemeat balls in the soup; serve.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavor and the meat for the soup and forcemeat balls.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the cream and milk base, giving the soup body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so the balls hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Adds bulk and helps bind the forcemeat balls.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Once cream and milk are in, the base can scorch or curdle if it boils too hard or sits on high heat. Keep the heat controlled so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, butter, nutmeg, flour, cream, milk, lobster. 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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