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Fish Cutlets

A savory fish mixture of salmon or lobster, butter, flour, liquid, lemon, cayenne, cream, and optional coral, shaped into cutlets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish into small pieces and remove any bones.

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the flour and water (or milk or fish stock).

  2. Stir until the mixture boils and thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and add lemon juice, cayenne, anchovy, fish, and cream.

  4. If using, add the coral for color and mix well.

Chill and shape

  1. Let the mixture cool for several hours.

  2. Flour a board, knife, and your hands, then shape the mixture into cutlets.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Salmon or lobster
Forms the main body of the cutlets and gives them their flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps build the thickened base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a binder that firms as it cools, so the cutlets hold their shape.
Water, milk, or fish stock
Liquid that cooks with the flour into a smooth, thickened base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool for several hours. The flour-thickened binder sets as it cools. If the mixture is shaped while still warm and soft, the cutlets will slump and fall apart when handled or cooked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, flour, milk, pepper, cream, lobster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, milk, pepper, cream, lobster. 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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