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Lobster Chops

Lobster chops are fried lobster patties coated in breadcrumbs and served with tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chops

  1. Mix the lobster, salt, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, lemon juice, egg yolk, parsley, and white sauce in the order given.

  2. Cool the mixture, then shape it into chop forms.

  3. Dip each chop in egg and breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the chops in deep oil until golden brown.

  2. Insert the tip of a small claw into the small end of each chop.

  3. Serve the chops stacked around a mold of parsley with tartare 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped lobster
Forms the main body and flavour of the chops.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the chops hold their shape.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess that keeps the filling tender.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that lifts the richness of the lobster.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its form. Chilling firms the fat and starches in the white sauce and binds the egg, so the chops keep their shape through breading and frying.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, lemon, egg, parsley, sauce. 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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