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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are fried strips of flour and butter coated with lobster coral sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mix the flour thoroughly with the butter.

  2. Roll the paste out to about ½ inch thick.

  3. Cut into strips 1 inch wide and 3 inches long.

Fry the cutlets

  1. Fry in boiling lard or dripping until golden, then drain on kitchen paper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, heat the butter sauce and stir in the coral and anchovy sauce.

  2. Let it come nearly to a boil, then stir in the cream.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them, 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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the paste structure that holds the cutlet shape during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste and fat to the sauce.
Coral from lobster
Gives the sauce its rich lobster flavour and characteristic colour.
Anchovy sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth that enhances the seafood flavour.
Cream
Adds smoothness and body to the sauce, mellowing its intensity.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard or dripping. Fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cutlets absorb excess fat and turn greasy instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, lobster, anchovy, sauce, cream. 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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