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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are breaded lobster pieces coated in a buttery anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the lobster from the shell and break it into small pieces.

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the flour and stir until combined.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the mixture boils.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the lobster, anchovy paste, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in the egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

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

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 bulk of the cutlet filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding sauce that holds the cutlets together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and starts the flour roux.
Milk or cream
Liquid that thickens with the flour into a smooth, creamy binder.
Egg
Coats the cutlets so the bread crumbs adhere and set during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce base before adding the lobster. The flour must boil in the milk long enough to thicken and lose its raw taste. If the mixture is too thin, the cutlets will not hold their shape and may break apart when fried.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

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