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Lobster Cutlets

A dish of lobster meat coated in flour, breadcrumbs, and egg, then fried and served with a lobster claw garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Chop the lobster finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and stir in the milk until the mixture is thick.

  3. Add the cream, chopped lobster, and seasonings, along with cochineal or lobster spawn for color.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape into cutlets on a board.

  2. Brush each cutlet with egg and cover with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Place a small lobster claw at the end of each cutlet and arrange them around the lobster shell.

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Provides the main flavor and the meaty filling of the cutlets.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base mixture before the flour is cooked in.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stiff base that holds the cutlets together.
Milk
Forms with the flour a thick, binding sauce that sets as it cools.
Egg
Coats the cutlets so the breadcrumbs adhere and brown during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the cutlets when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture stays soft and sticky, so cutlets lose their shape and tear. Once cooled, the starch-thickened base firms up enough to hold a clean form for coating and frying.

“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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