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Lobster Croquets or Cutlets

Lobster croquettes or cutlets are breaded lobster meat patties served fried with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Croquets or Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and chop it into small pieces.

  2. Mix the lobster meat with White Allemande Sauce, pounded berries, spawn, cream, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Heat the mixture in a saucepan for 5 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture onto a dish to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, cut the mixture into cutlet shapes or roll into cork-shaped pieces on a floured board.

  2. Coat each piece with egg and bread crumbs carefully.

  3. Fry in hot oil for 2 minutes or until golden brown.

  4. Serve with fried parsley on a hot dish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the croquette filling.
White allemande sauce
Binds the chopped lobster into a mixture that holds its shape.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Egg
Coats the shaped pieces so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crust.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. The mixture must be cooled so it firms up enough to hold its cutlet or cork shape. If shaped while warm, it will be soft and may break apart or leak in the hot oil.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, cream, pepper, flour, egg, bread. 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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