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Lobster Croquettes

A fried dish of lobster mixed with mustard, cayenne, cream sauce, coated in egg and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lobster Croquettes

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped lobster, salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Mix in the cream sauce until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in the beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan and fry the croquettes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Cream sauce
Binds the chopped lobster into a mixture that holds its shape.
Beaten egg
Helps the cracker crumbs stick to the outside of each croquette.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the croquettes. The coating can break or the croquettes can fall apart if the mixture is not firm enough after shaping. Frying in hot fat sets the crumb coating and browns the outside, so the croquette stays intact while the filling heats through.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, cream, sauce, egg. 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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