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Lobster Cutlet

A fried lobster cutlet coated in a butter‑flour batter and seasoned with salt and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped lobster, salt, cayenne, and cream or milk.

  2. Melt butter in a pan, add flour, and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Mix the butter-flour mixture into the lobster mixture.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

  2. Bread the cutlets as you would croquettes.

  3. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry the cutlets until brown.

  4. Garnish each cutlet with a lobster claw.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Provides the main body and flavour of the cutlet.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness to the lobster mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps form the flour base.
Flour
Cooked with butter, it thickens the mixture so the cutlets hold their shape.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot be formed into cutlets. Cooling lets the flour-thickened mixture set firm enough to hold its shape through breading and 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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