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Lobster Cutlets

A dish of lobster meat formed into cutlets, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the flour, cottolene, cream, and egg yolks together in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until it reaches a boiling point, but do not let it boil.

  3. Add the mixture and seasonings to the chopped lobster meat and place on a dish to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, mold the mixture into cutlets using your hands.

  2. Dip each cutlet first in egg, then in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in hot cottolene until they are light brown.

  2. Place a small lobster claw in the end of each cutlet and serve immediately.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help hold the cutlets together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the lobster mixture.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it can hold its shape.
Cottolene
Provides fat for the cutlet mixture and for frying, aiding browning.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture without boiling. Egg yolks thicken when heated but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Gentle heat keeps the base smooth so it binds the lobster properly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, cream, flour, egg, parsley. 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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