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Lobster Croquettes

A fried ball of lobster meat mixed with cream, butter, flour, and spices, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Lobster Croquettes

Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, heat the cream and butter until just before boiling.

  2. Stir in the flour dissolved in a little milk until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the chopped lobster meat and fat, seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

Coat and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls, dip in the beaten egg, then coat with rolled cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot butter and lard 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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cream and butter into a stiff base that holds the croquettes together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, making the filling soft and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base and helps the croquettes brown when fried.
Lobster meat and fat
Provides the main flavour and tender texture of the filling.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the cracker crumbs stick to the croquettes.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before frying and let the mixture firm up. If the base is too hot or too loose, the balls will not hold their shape and may split or leak in the hot fat. Chilling the formed balls helps the coating stay intact during frying.

“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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