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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets made from boiled lobster meat mixed with butter, breadcrumbs, mace, salt, cayenne, and egg white, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove the meat from the tail, claws, and body of the boiled lobster, including the soft meat and spawn.

  2. Chop the lobster meat and place it in a bowl with butter, bread crumbs, pounded mace, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the egg white and mix until very smooth.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets using your hands or a cutter.

  2. Dip each cutlet in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets until they are a light color.

Serve

  1. Insert a small claw into the small end of each cutlet.

  2. Arrange the cutlets on a dish with the small end facing upwards and garnish with fried parsley in the center.

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

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Hen lobster
Provides the main body of meat that forms the cutlet.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture so the mixture stays tender when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Give the mixture body and form a crisp, golden coating on the outside.
Egg white
Acts as a binder that holds the cutlet together while it cooks.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until they are a light color. Frying too hot browns the crumb coating before the inside heats through, while frying too gently lets the coated cutlet absorb excess fat and turn greasy. A moderate heat gives an even, light golden crust.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, bread, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, bread, pepper, egg. 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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