Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Lobster Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Chop the meat and spawn of the lobsters very fine.
In a bowl, combine the chopped lobster, bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs.
Mix in the egg yolk to form a paste.
Shape and fry
Shape the mixture into pieces about 1.5 inches thick.
Dip each piece in batter and fry until golden.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobster meat and spawn
- Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the fritter filling.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the chopped ingredients into a cohesive paste.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for a tender interior.
The step that matters
Forming the paste. If the lobster is not chopped very fine and the egg yolk is not mixed in thoroughly, the mixture will be loose and may fall apart during frying. Fine chopping and even binding give the pieces enough cohesion to hold together in hot fat.
“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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