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Lobster Soup

A soup made from various fish and lobster, thickened with butter, flour or cream, served with forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Clean and cut the fish into pieces.

  2. Remove the meat from the lobsters and cut it into small pieces; set aside.

  3. Break the lobster shells and add them to the fish for the stock.

  4. Boil the stock gently for several hours.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Pound the coral of the lobster in a mortar with a small piece of the stock.

  2. Make forcemeat balls with the pounded coral, chopped parsley, bread-crumbs, and the egg.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the stock when done, then thicken it with butter and flour or cream.

  2. Warm the lobster meat in the thickened stock and serve with the forcemeat balls.

  3. Season delicately with compound sauces.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main flavour and the tender meat that is warmed through at the end.
Butter and flour
Together they thicken the stock into a smooth, lightly rich body.
Egg
Binds the coral, parsley and bread-crumbs so the forcemeat balls hold their shape.
Bread-crumbs
Add bulk and soft texture to the forcemeat balls.
Cream
Can thicken and enrich the stock, adding body and a softer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil the stock gently for several hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavour from the fish and shells without clouding the liquid or toughening the proteins. A hard boil emulsifies fat and breaks up the stock, leaving it cloudy and less clean-tasting.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lobster, bread, egg, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lobster, bread, egg, butter, flour, 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.

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