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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: Lobster and truffle work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 155 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lobster + truffletop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

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

  5. Lobster + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit

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. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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