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Lobster Cutlets

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

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. Mix the lobster meat with the heavy white sauce.

Shape and fry

  1. Mold the mixture into the shape of cutlets or croquettes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a pan and fry the cutlets until golden brown.

  3. Insert a lobster claw into the small end of each cutlet.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets surrounded by peas and drizzled with white sauce 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

Cooked lobster
Provides the main flavor and the meaty texture of the cutlets.
Heavy white sauce
Binds the minced lobster so the mixture holds its shape when molded.
Egg
Cooked into the white sauce, it adds body and helps the filling set firm.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until golden brown. The breadcrumb coating needs enough hot oil to brown and crisp the outside while the filling warms through. Oil that is too cool lets the coating soak up grease and fall apart, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre heats.

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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