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Lobster Chops

Lobster chops are breaded and fried pieces of lobster in a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Boil the cream or milk.

  2. Thicken the mixture with corn starch and butter.

  3. Add the lobsters to the mixture.

  4. Season the lobsters with salt and cayenne pepper.

  5. Pour the mixture into a pan.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Mold the cooled mixture into chop shapes.

  2. Insert small pieces of bone or stick in the end to imitate a chop.

  3. Dip each chop in bread crumbs.

  4. Dip each chop in beaten eggs.

  5. Dip each chop again in bread crumbs.

  6. Fry the chops in hot lard until golden.

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

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

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the chop filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream so the mixture sets firm enough to shape.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a custard-like binder.
Eggs
Coat the chops so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp, golden shell.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the mixture and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool. The thickened mixture must cool fully to firm up before shaping; shaping it warm makes it soft and likely to slump or break apart during breading and frying.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, corn, egg, cream, butter, pepper. 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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