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Lobster Chowder

A creamy soup made with lobster, milk, crackers, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lobster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, bring 1 quart of milk to a boil.

  2. Add the crushed crackers to the boiling milk and stir well.

  3. Mix in the chopped lobster, butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Bring the mixture back to a boil.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Lobster + milktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together489 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, savory flavor of the chowder.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the milk into a creamy, body-rich base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the crackers thicken and the lobster cooks in.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture back to a boil. Boiling thickens the cracker starch and cooks the lobster through. Milk scorches easily on the pot bottom, so stir often and keep the heat controlled to avoid a burnt taste or curdled texture.

“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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