Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Lobster Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Make the white sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan to make the white sauce.
Add the flour and salt, and cook for 5 minutes.
Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.
Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk.
Shape and coat
Mix the lobster meat, salt, cayenne, nutmeg, lemon juice, and parsley in a bowl.
Shape the mixture into cutlets about ½ inch thick.
Coat each cutlet in breadcrumbs, dip in beaten egg, and coat again in breadcrumbs.
Fry
Fry the cutlets in deep fat until golden brown.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,062 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster meat
- Forms the main body and flavour of the cutlets.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter into a white sauce that binds the lobster mixture.
- Egg yolk
- Enriches the white sauce and helps bind the cutlet mixture.
- Butter
- Fat that forms the base of the white sauce, adding richness.
- Milk
- Liquid that, heated with flour, sets into a thick sauce.
- Egg
- Beaten egg binds the breadcrumbs to the cutlet surface.
The step that matters
Fry the cutlets in deep fat until golden brown. Frying the breaded coating browns it and crisps the surface while the soft, sauce-bound interior heats through. Cutlets that are not fully coated or are fried too cool may fall apart or absorb excess fat.
“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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