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Lobster Bisque

A creamy soup made from lobster shells, butter, stock, and vegetables, finished with lemon juice and garnished with lobster coral.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound the lobster shells in a mortar with the butter.

  2. Melt the mixture in a saucepan.

  3. Strain the mixture, then stir in the flour and add the stock or milk.

Simmer and sieve

  1. Add the herbs, carrot, turnip, and onion.

  2. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Pass the soup through a fine sieve.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper, salt, and lemon juice before serving.

  2. Garnish with lobster coral.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster shells
Provide the main shellfish flavor that gives the bisque its character.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the bisque body.
Stock or milk
Forms the liquid base that the soup solids are cooked and suspended in.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens during simmering.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour before adding the liquid. Flour needs to be evenly distributed before the stock or milk goes in, otherwise it clumps. Starch granules swell as the soup heats, so an even mix gives a smooth, consistently thickened bisque.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, milk, flour, carrot, turnip, onion):

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, milk, flour, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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