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Lobster Croquettes

Fried balls of finely chopped lobster mixed with pepper, salt, parsley, cream, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lobster Croquettes

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 ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Chop the lobster very fine.

  2. Mix with pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and parsley.

  3. Moisten the mixture with cream and a small piece of butter.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into small balls with your hands.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil 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. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main filling and flavour of the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Bind the mixture and form a crisp coating that browns when fried.
Cream
Adds moisture so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and tenderness to the filling.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere and crisp during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Too hot and the outside browns before the filling heats through. Frying in hot oil seals the crumb coating quickly for a crisp, golden result.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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