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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are breaded lobster pieces fried and served with hollandaise sauce.

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 base

  1. Chop the lobster finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Add the flour.

  4. Stir in the milk until the mixture is thick.

  5. Add the cream, chopped lobster, seasonings, and cochineal or lobster spawn for color.

  6. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlet shapes on a board.

  2. Brush each cutlet with egg.

  3. Coat each cutlet with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Place a small claw of lobster at the end of each cutlet.

  3. Serve arranged in a circle around the lobster head and tail shell, topped with hollandaise sauce and a center of peas or cucumber.

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. Butter + creamtop 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
Enriches the base and carries flavor while the flour cooks into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter into a stiff base that holds the cutlet shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth, binding sauce.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks and sets during frying.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. A warm thickened base is soft and sticky. Cooling it fully lets the starch set so the cutlets hold their shape and do not slump or split 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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