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Lobster Chops

A dish of boiled lobster mixed with butter, flour, cream, eggs, and spices, formed into chops, breaded, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat until it bubbles.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and cook it for a minute.

  3. Pour in the boiling cream.

  4. Add the lobster dice and stir until scalding hot.

  5. Remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool slightly.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  7. Return the mixture to the heat and stir until the eggs are set.

Shape and coat

  1. Butter a platter.

  2. Spread the lobster mixture to a depth of half an inch on the platter.

  3. Shape the cooled mixture into chops pointed at one end.

  4. Coat each chop in egg, then in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the coated chops in boiling lard until golden.

  2. Insert a claw into the end of each chop.

  3. Arrange the chops in a circle on a napkin.

  4. Place the lobster tail in the center.

  5. Place the head with long horns on top.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Lobster
Provides the main flavor and the meaty body of the chops.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the base.
Flour
Thickens the hot cream so the mixture holds its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the base.
Egg yolks
Set when heated, binding the mixture so it can be shaped and fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat, then reheat gently. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them. Cooling first lets them blend smoothly, and gentle reheating sets them evenly, binding the chops.

“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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