Skip to main content
Main

Indian Lobster-cutlets

Lobster cutlets fried in butter, served with a sauce of claw flesh, anchovy essence, chili vinegar, salt, mace, and coral.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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.

  4. Repeat the egg and crumb process.

Fry and make the sauce

  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.

  3. Heat the claw flesh in melted butter with essence of anchovies, chili vinegar, salt, mace, and coral.

  4. Serve the sauce in the center of the cutlets or in a tureen alongside.

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 meaty body of the cutlets.
Beaten eggs
Act as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the lobster pieces.
Very fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Flesh of lobster claws
Supplies extra lobster flavor and body to the sauce.
Rich melted butter
Carries fat and richness into the claw flesh sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets quickly until light brown. Breaded lobster is already cooked, so it only needs a brief fry to brown the crumbs. Over-frying dries the delicate lobster meat and can scorch the coating before the interior warms through.

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