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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are fried pieces of lobster meat mixed with white sauce, coated in breadcrumbs, served with peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the cooked lobster and cut it into fine pieces.

  2. Prepare a heavy white sauce and cook an egg in it for five minutes.

  3. Mix the lobster meat with the white sauce and form into cutlet shapes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the cutlets in breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Insert a claw into the small end of each cutlet.

  2. Serve the cutlets surrounded by peas and drizzled with white or Hollandaise sauce.

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 + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + peastop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,109 recipes
  4. Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + peastop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together73 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
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the cutlet filling.
Heavy white sauce
Binds the lobster pieces together so the cutlets hold their shape.
Egg
Cooked in the sauce to help set and firm the filling.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp golden crust when fried in oil.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the breadcrumb coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns, and the filling may not heat through evenly. Hot oil seals the crust quickly so the golden colour forms while the inside warms.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, egg):

  1. Peasthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, 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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