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Indian Lobster-cutlets

A dish of battered lobster cutlets served with a spicy anchovy and chili sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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. Select good-sized lobster tails and remove them whole.

  2. Slice the tails into ⅓‑inch thick pieces.

  3. Dip each piece into beaten egg, then coat with seasoned bread crumbs.

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

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets quickly in good butter until light brown.

  2. Serve arranged in a chain on a hot dish, keeping them as dry as possible.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare a sauce by heating 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
Provide the main meat, which is sliced and coated to form the cutlets.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the lobster.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Good butter
Fries the cutlets, adding richness and browning the crumb coating.
Claw meat from lobsters
Forms the base of the sauce, adding lobster flavour and body.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets quickly in good butter until light brown. Frying quickly over sufficient heat browns the crumb coating before the lobster overcooks and dries out. Lingering in the pan toughens the delicate lobster meat.

Swap the mace

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

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

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