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Lobster, Rissoles of

A pastry-wrapped lobster filling made with butter, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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, Rissoles of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and mince it finely.

  2. Mix the lobster meat with salt, parsley, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  3. Fry the onion in butter until tender, then add cream and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

  4. Stir in the minced lobster and egg yolks, cooking until the eggs are set.

  5. Spread the mixture on a dish and let it cool.

Assemble the rissoles

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Place small balls of the lobster mixture on the pastry, spaced apart.

  3. Moisten the pastry around the balls with water and cover with more pastry.

  4. Press the edges securely, trim neatly, and dust with flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until lightly browned, then serve garnished with parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

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.
Egg yolks
Set during cooking to bind the lobster filling together.
Butter
Softens the onion and adds richness to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the filling tender.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky outer case that browns when fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet flavour of the lobster.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks into the filling. Egg yolks set when heated, binding the mixture. If the filling is overcooked it turns dry and crumbly, and if undercooked it stays runny and may break apart when the rissoles are fried.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, parsley, pepper, lemon, butter, cream, 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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