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Lobster Cutlets

A fried dish of finely chopped lobster mixed with butter, flour, milk, lemon, and seasonings, formed into cutlets and breaded.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

16 cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Chop the lobster finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a small pan, add the flour, and stir until smooth. Cook for a few moments.

  3. Gradually add the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice and seasonings, then mix thoroughly with the lobster.

  5. Spread the mixture on a plate and let it cool until firm.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut into 16 equal parts and shape into cutlets, using a little flour on your fingers and board.

  2. Coat each cutlet in egg and breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil for 3 to 4 minutes until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the cutlet filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce base and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding sauce that holds the lobster together.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce that, once cooled, sets the mixture firm enough to shape.
Egg
Acts as the binder for the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp golden crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until firm before shaping. The flour-thickened sauce only sets as it cools. If the mixture is shaped while still warm and soft, the cutlets will be fragile and may fall apart in the hot oil.

“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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