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Croquettes De Homard

A French lobster croquette made with lobster meat, milk, flour, butter, and seasonings, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes De Homard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the lobster and onion as fine as possible.

  2. In a saucepan, blend the butter and flour over medium heat without browning.

  3. Stir in the boiling milk and cook until perfectly smooth and thick, about 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in the lobster meat, onion, parsley, and seasonings.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then form it into croquettes.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the croquettes in egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown.

  3. Drain and serve very 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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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 meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that binds the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the thick sauce, adding moisture and softness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps form the roux with the flour.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce without browning the roux. Blending butter and flour over medium heat without browning keeps the flavour mild and the thickener fully active. Adding boiling milk then cooking until smooth lets the starch swell evenly, so the mixture sets firm enough to shape into croquettes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, nutmeg, parsley, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, nutmeg, parsley, butter, flour, milk. 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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