Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lobster Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobsters
Remove the tails from the lobsters.
Take out the meat from the lobsters.
Crack the claws of the lobsters.
Cut the lobster meat into bite-sized pieces.
Set aside the coral and soft body parts.
Bruise part of the coral in a mortar.
Mix the bruised coral with some lobster meat to make force-meat balls.
Make the soup
In a pot, bring the veal broth to a boil.
Add the bruised legs and chine of the lobsters to the broth.
Boil for 20 minutes.
Strain the broth.
Bruise the live spawn in a mortar with butter and flour to thicken the soup.
Rub the mixture through a sieve.
Add the mixture back to the broth along with the lobster meat and remaining coral.
Simmer gently for 10 minutes without boiling to preserve the color.
Serve
Serve in a tureen and add the juice of a lemon.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 flavor, and their shells and legs give the broth its taste.
- Veal broth
- Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping the flour blend smoothly into the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup slightly when cooked with butter and mixed into the broth.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the finished soup.
The step that matters
Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling vigorously can toughen the lobster meat and cause the soup to lose its pale color, so it should only simmer.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, veal, butter, flour):
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Vanillafits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, veal, butter, flour. 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
Lemon Sauce236 recipes
Lobster Sauce174 recipes
Lobster Croquettes99 recipes
Veal Patties50 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.