Skip to main content
Soup

Lobster

A soup made by boiling lobster shells and meat with aromatics, cream, and lobster forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Split the lobsters in half lengthwise and crack the large claws to remove the meat, keeping tail meat separate.

  2. Scrape the brown fur from the shells and place shells, claws, and tins in a mortar; beat well.

Make the soup base

  1. Add anchovies, onion, herbs, lemon peel, pepper, salt, and French roll crumb to the mortar; pour in 2 quarts of water and boil.

  2. Strain the liquid and set aside.

  3. In a mortar, beat the coral with a little butter, 1 teaspoon of flour, and grated nutmeg; gradually mix in 1 quart of cream.

  4. Combine this mixture with the strained lobster liquid.

Make the forcemeat and serve

  1. Mince the lobster meat and mix with breadcrumbs, seasoning, and beaten egg yolk to form a forcemeat.

  2. Shape the forcemeat into balls and heat them in the soup after adding the cream and coral.

  3. Cut the tail meat into pieces, boil them in the soup, then pour into a tureen and 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  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

Lobsters
Provide the main meat and the shells that build the flavour of the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the soup.
Egg yolk
Binds the minced lobster and breadcrumbs together into a forcemeat that holds its shape.
French roll crumb
Thickens the broth slightly and helps bind the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour when mixed with the coral.
Flour
Lightly thickens the coral and cream mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the forcemeat balls in the soup. The egg yolk in the forcemeat sets when heated, so the balls must be heated gently in simmering soup rather than boiled hard, or they can become rubbery and break apart.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes