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Lobster Cutlets

A savory dish of lobster, butter, flour, stock, cream, egg, mushrooms, truffle, and parsley shaped into cutlets and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, cream, and white stock until smooth.

  3. Add the parsley, egg, lobster, mushrooms, and truffle.

  4. Cook for a few minutes.

  5. Pour the mixture onto a platter.

  6. Let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in bread crumbs, then in diluted egg, then again in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry 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.

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

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cream and stock into a smooth mixture that holds its shape when cooled.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour when melted in the saucepan.
Lobster
Provides the main seafood flavour and bulk of the cutlet filling.
Egg
Binds the cooled mixture and helps the bread crumb coating adhere.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the thickened base.

The step that matters

Let it cool completely. The mixture must set firm before shaping; if it is still warm and loose, the cutlets will slump and break apart in the hot lard.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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