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Lobster Cutlets

A fried lobster cutlet coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with a lobster claw garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir in the milk, cooking until the mixture is thick.

Shape the cutlets

  1. Finely chop the lobster and combine it in a bowl with the cream and seasonings.

  2. Rub the lobster spawn through a sieve and add it or cochineal to achieve a bright pink color.

  3. Mix everything together and let it cool on a plate.

  4. Cut or mold the mixture into cutlet shapes on a board.

Coat, fry and serve

  1. Coat each cutlet in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Place a small claw of lobster at the end of each cutlet 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 + 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  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 flavor and the firm, meaty texture of the cutlet filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base sauce that binds the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the lobster together when cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the thickened sauce, adding softness and body.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating sticks and sets during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. The thickened sauce only firms up as it cools. Shaping a warm mixture makes it slack and sticky, so the cutlets can lose their shape or split in the hot oil.

“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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