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Lobster Croquettes

A fried appetizer made from minced lobster, butter, flour, parsley, eggs, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lobster Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Mince the lobster meat finely.

  2. Season the minced lobster with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Mix in the all-purpose flour.

  4. Add the minced lobster to the mixture. Add the finely chopped parsley. Add a little stock.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  6. Stir in the yolks of the eggs.

  7. Spread the mixture on a platter. Let the mixture cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Mold the cooled mixture into croquette shapes.

  2. Dip each croquette in the beaten egg. Coat each croquette with cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot lard 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Butter
Enriches the mixture and adds richness and flavour to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the mixture so it can be shaped.
Eggs
Yolks bind the cooled mixture, and beaten egg helps crumbs stick to the outside.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture will not hold its shape and can fall apart or stick to the hands. Cooling lets the starch set so the croquettes keep their form through breading and frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, pepper, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, butter, flour, egg. 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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