Skip to main content
Main

Indian Lobster-cutlets

Lobster cutlets are breaded lobster tail pieces fried in butter, served with a sauce of claw meat, anchovy essence, chili vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Indian Lobster-cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Remove the tails from the lobsters and slice them into ⅓ inch thick pieces.

  2. Dip each piece into the beaten eggs, then coat with seasoned bread crumbs.

  3. Press the crumbs onto the lobster pieces with a knife blade and repeat the egg and crumb process.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat good butter in a pan and fry the cutlets quickly until light brown.

  2. Arrange the cutlets in a chain on a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the claw meat in melted butter, adding essence of anchovies, chili vinegar, salt, mace, and coral if available.

  2. Optionally, add whole or pounded shrimps to the sauce and heat gently.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster tails
Forms the main body of the cutlets, providing the sweet, meaty filling.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the lobster so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot butter.
Butter
Fries the coating to light brown and adds rich flavour.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Chili vinegar
Adds sharpness and gentle heat to balance the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets quickly. Frying over high heat for a short time browns the crumb coating before the lobster inside overcooks and turns tough and dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, bread, pepper, nutmeg, butter, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, bread, pepper, nutmeg, butter, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes