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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are coated in cracker dust and fried, served hot with lobster claws.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster base

  1. Melt the butter with minced parsley and onion juice in a frying pan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth, then add the cream and season with salt, paprika, and mustard.

  3. Cook until the mixture is smooth and thick, then add the minced lobster meat.

  4. Heat until boiling hot, then transfer to a platter and let cool until stiff.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets with your hands.

  2. Dip each cutlet in cracker dust, then in beaten egg, and back into cracker dust.

  3. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in deep boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with lobster claws and serve hot.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base and carries the parsley and onion flavour while the flour cooks in.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a stiff mixture that holds the cutlet shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the base becomes smooth and thick when cooked.
Minced lobster meat
Provides the main flavour and protein that the cutlet is built around.
Egg
Binds the cracker dust coating so it adheres and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until stiff before shaping. If the base is still warm and loose, it will not hold its shape and the cutlets may break or slump. Chilling firms the starch-thickened mixture so it can be handled and coated without falling apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, cream, mustard, lobster, meat):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, cream, mustard, lobster, meat. 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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