Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Croquettes

A fried ball of lobster meat mixed with spices and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Lobster Croquettes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped lobster meat, pepper, coarse sea salt, powdered mace, and bread crumbs.

  2. Form the mixture into egg-shaped balls, using melted butter to help shape them.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each ball in beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in butter or lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot and dry.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 flavor and the protein that gives the croquettes their body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the cracker crumbs stick and set during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the mixture hold together when shaped.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying in fat at a steady heat browns the crumb coating and sets the egg, creating a crisp crust. Too low a heat lets the croquettes soak up grease, while too high a heat can scorch the outside before the centre is hot.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, pepper, bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes