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Lobster Cutlets and Croquettes

Lobster cutlets and croquettes are lobster meat shaped into cutlets, coated in flour, and fried.

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 and Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until bubbling.

  2. Add the water, cream, and white wine; stir until thick and smooth.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the lobster meat along with enough bruised coral to achieve a fine red color.

  4. Heat the mixture until it reaches boiling point, then pour it onto a buttered plate to harden.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cold, flour your hands and shape the mixture into cutlets resembling small lamb cutlets.

  2. Crumb the cutlets as you would for croquettes and insert a small lobster claw into each to represent a bone.

  3. Carefully arrange the cutlets in a frying basket and fry in very hot fat until golden.

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

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

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 flavor and the body of the croquette filling.
Butter
Enriches the flour base and adds richness and flavor to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water base so the filling sets firm enough to shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling as it sets when heated.
Bruised coral
Gives the filling its fine red color.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture to boiling before it sets. The egg yolks are stirred into the filling, and boiling it cooks them and thickens the mixture so it can harden on the plate and hold its shape when shaped and fried.

“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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