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Cutlets of Lobster, Crab, or Oyster

Shellfish cutlets made from minced lobster, crab, or oyster, seasoned and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Cutlets of Lobster, Crab, or Oyster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mince the lobster meat.

  2. Combine the minced lobster with browned butter and flour in a pan.

  3. Season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  4. Add the strong stock.

  5. Stir over heat until hot.

  6. Spoon the mixture onto a large dish.

  7. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into mutton cutlet forms.

  2. Brush each cutlet with beaten egg yolks.

  3. Coat each cutlet with grated bread.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in boiling clarified beef dripping until light brown.

  2. Garnish each cutlet with a small claw or stick.

  3. Arrange the cutlets on a dish 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

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

Lobster
Forms the main body of the cutlets and gives them their shellfish flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the stock-and-butter mixture so it holds together when shaped.
Strong stock
Moistens the mixture and adds savoury depth.
Beaten egg yolks
Forms a golden coating layer that helps the bread crumbs stick and brown.
Grated bread
Creates a crisp outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture will not hold its shape and may slump or split when coated and fried. Cooling lets the butter and flour set so the cutlets keep their form in the hot dripping.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, butter, flour, pepper, 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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