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Lobster Cutlet

A fried lobster patty made with a butter‑flour sauce, lemon, cream, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 oz. of butter and mix it with 1 oz. of flour.

  2. Stir in ½ cup of cold water quickly until smooth.

  3. Add 6 drops of lemon juice, salt, cayenne, and 1 tablespoon of cream.

  4. Rub the lobster spawn or coral through a sieve with 1 oz. of butter and blend it into the sauce.

  5. Warm the mixture and add the lobster pieces, cooking for 10 minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, beat the yolk of 1 egg.

  2. Flour a board and shape the mixture into cutlets.

  3. Dip the cutlets in the egg and coat them with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard until golden.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with fried parsley, claws, and feelers.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Combines with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and carries the coral flavour.
Lobster flesh
Provides the main flavour and texture of the cutlets.
Egg yolk
Binds the cutlets and helps the bread crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Cream
Adds softness and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the cutlets absorb fat and turn greasy before the coating sets and turns golden.

“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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