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Cutlets of Lobster or Crab

A dish of minced lobster or crab formed into cutlets, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Cutlets of Lobster or Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince and pound the lobster or crab flesh in a mortar, seasoning with salt and cayenne.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and slowly add the flour, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the water and stir until the sauce boils, then mix in a little cream and the pounded fish.

  4. Heat the mixture over the fire until hot, then transfer it to a large dish and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into lobster or crab cutlets, brush with beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard or dripping until lightly browned, about 2-3 minutes.

  3. Garnish with a piece of claw and parsley before serving.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Lobster or crab flesh
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the cutlet mixture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the cutlet mixture.
Flour
Thickens the water and cream into a binding sauce that holds the cutlets together.
Beaten egg
Forms a coating that helps the bread crumbs stick and brown when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The flour-thickened sauce must cool and firm up, otherwise the mixture stays soft and slumps or breaks apart when shaped and coated.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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