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Indian Lobster-cutlets

Lobster cutlets are fried lobster tail pieces coated in egg and seasoned breadcrumbs, served with a sauce of claw meat, anchovy essence, and chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 the beaten eggs, 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, with sauce in the center or in a tureen.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the claw meat in melted butter, adding essence of anchovies, chili vinegar, salt, mace, and coral if available.

  2. Optionally, add shrimps to the sauce, heating them 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.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the lobster so the coating adheres during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried in butter.
Butter
Fries the cutlets to a light brown and adds richness to the sauce.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets quickly in good butter until light brown. Egg and crumb coatings brown quickly in hot fat, while the lobster inside is already cooked and turns tough and dry if the frying runs long. A quick fry in hot butter browns the crust before the interior overcooks.

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.

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