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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are breaded and fried pieces of lobster meat coated in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the cream sauce

  1. Prepare the cream sauce by melting the butter, adding flour, and cooking until thick; then stir in cream, milk, and salt.

Prepare the lobster mixture

  1. Mix the salt, mustard, and cayenne with the chopped lobster meat.

  2. Combine the lobster mixture with the cream sauce.

  3. Spread the mixture ½ inch thick on a platter and let it cool.

  4. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in seasoned bread crumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in crumbs.

  2. Fry in deep fat until golden brown.

  3. Garnish each cutlet with a lobster claw or paper frill before serving.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body and flavor of the cutlets.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce so it holds the cutlet mixture together.
Butter
Enriches the cream sauce and adds richness to the cutlets.
Egg
Binds the breaded coating so the crumbs adhere during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The lobster and cream sauce must be chilled and firm enough to hold shape; if shaped while warm, the mixture is soft and can slump or tear during breading and frying.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, pepper, cream, sauce, milk, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, cream, sauce, milk, butter. 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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