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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are pan‑fried pieces of minced lobster mixed with butter, milk, and spices, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

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

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. If using fresh lobster, remove the meat from the shell, reserving the claws and feelers for garnish.

  2. Mince the lobster.

Make the filling

  1. Place the butter and flour in a saucepan.

  2. When the butter is melted, add the milk and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Stir in the cream, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and cayenne; mix thoroughly.

  4. Add the minced lobster and spread the mixture onto a large dinner plate to cool.

  5. Once cool and firm, divide into 12 equal parts and shape each into a mutton cutlet.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the egg and brush it over each cutlet, then roll in the bread crumbs.

  2. Heat enough fat in a frying pan to cover the cutlets and fry until light brown.

  3. Drain on soft paper and garnish each cutlet with a feeler or a piece of parsley stem.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a folded serviette or lace paper and garnish with green parsley.

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

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

  2. Lobster + creamtop 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

Lobster
Forms the main filling and provides the flavour of the cutlets.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a binding paste that holds the cutlets together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that, once thickened, sets the filling firm when cooled.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to each cutlet.
White bread crumbs
Forms a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling and firming the filling before shaping. The filling must be fully cool and firm before shaping, because the flour-thickened mixture stays soft while warm and will not hold its shape. Rushing this step makes the cutlets fall apart in the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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