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Lobster Balls

A fried dish of lobster meatballs seasoned with cayenne, white pepper, mace, and salt, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lobster Balls

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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the lobster meat, coral, and spawn in a mortar.

  2. Add the bread crumbs and season with cayenne, white pepper, mace, and salt.

  3. Mix in enough melted butter to form a cohesive mass.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into balls the size of small apples.

  2. Beat the egg and coat each ball, then dip in additional bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in hot oil until they are a pale 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat and coral
Provides the main flavour and protein that gives the meatballs their body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together as a shapeable mass.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness and helps bind the mixture into a cohesive mass.
Egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs adhere to each ball.

The step that matters

Fry until a pale brown. Frying in hot oil browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction, so the balls need enough heat to colour without overcooking the lobster inside.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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