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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are fried pieces of lobster meat mixed with a heavy white sauce, coated in breadcrumbs, served with peas and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the cooked lobster and cut it into fine pieces.

  2. Mix the lobster meat with the heavy white sauce that contains a cooked egg.

Shape and fry

  1. Mould the mixture into cutlet shapes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

Garnish and serve

  1. Insert a lobster claw into the small end of each cutlet.

  2. Serve the cutlets surrounded by peas and drizzled with white or Hollandaise sauce.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + peastop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the meaty texture of the cutlets.
Heavy white sauce
Binds the lobster pieces together and keeps the filling moist.
Egg
Helps set the white sauce so the mixture holds its shape when fried.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown coating during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the breadcrumbs absorb oil and turn greasy before browning, and the filling may loosen. Hot oil sears the coating quickly, sealing it and creating crunch while the inside warms through.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, egg, pepper):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, egg, pepper. 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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