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Lobster Soup

A soup made with lobster, onion, celery, carrot, white stock, herbs, and a French roll crust, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lobster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster meat into neat pieces and set aside.

  2. In a mortar, beat the fins and minor claws, then stew them in a saucepan with white stock.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sweet herbs, onion, celery, carrot, and toasted crust of the French roll.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, and simmer for about 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the saucepan.

  4. Add the lobster pieces and mix in the beaten coral with a little flour.

  5. Heat the soup gently for a few minutes without boiling.

  6. Optionally, add the lemon rind and nutmeg for extra flavor before serving 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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 tender meat pieces in the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when mixed with the beaten coral.
French roll
Its toasted crust adds body and absorbs liquid, helping thicken the soup.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the stock as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Heat the soup gently without boiling. Boiling a soup thickened with flour and egg-rich coral can cause the mixture to break or curdle, and can toughen the lobster meat. Gentle heat keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lobster, celery, carrot, pepper, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lobster, celery, carrot, pepper, lemon, nutmeg. 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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