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Lobster Cutlets and Croquettes

A dish of lobster meat mixed with a sauce, shaped into cutlets, coated, 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 Cutlets and Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce 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.

Make the lobster mixture

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

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

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

Bread and fry

  1. Crumb the cutlets as you would for croquettes, inserting a small lobster claw at one end to represent the bone.

  2. Carefully arrange the cutlets in a frying basket and fry in very hot fat.

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

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce base.
Flour
Combines with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, helping it set softly around the lobster.
Egg yolks
Bind the lobster mixture and help it set firm when cooled and shaped.
Lobster meat
Provides the main flavor and bulk of the croquette filling.
Bruised coral
Gives the mixture a fine red color and extra lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture to boiling, then cool it fully before shaping. Egg yolks can curdle and become grainy if overheated, and the mixture must be fully cold and firm to hold its shape when floured and crumbed.

“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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