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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets made with lobster meat, butter, flour, cream, and spices, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove all the flesh from the tail and claws of the lobster and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Wash and dry the coral of the lobster, then pound it in a mortar with 1½ ounces of butter and rub it through a fine sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, mix 1 ounce of flour and ½ ounce of butter over heat, then add the water and boil the mixture well.

  2. Stir in the coral butter, cream, and seasoning. Mix well, then add the lobster and let it cool on a plate.

Fry and serve

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets, dip each in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in enough fat to cover them until golden brown.

  3. Serve the cutlets on a napkin and garnish with fried parsley.

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 + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the bulk of the cutlet and supplies the main flavour and tender filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and carries the coral colour and taste through the mixture.
Flour
Cooked with butter and water, it thickens the mixture so the cutlets hold their shape.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when the cutlets are fried.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. If the mixture is still warm and loose, the cutlets will not hold their shape and may fall apart in the fat. Letting it cool on a plate firms it so it can be shaped, dipped in egg and coated cleanly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, cream, egg, bread. 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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