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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets are pan‑fried, breaded lobster meat shaped into cutlets and served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lobster mixture

  1. Cut the lobster meat into fine dice and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Add the stock and one well-beaten egg, then season and bring to a boil.

  4. Remove from heat, add the lobster and lemon juice, and mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Butter a platter and pour the mixture onto it, smoothing to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Let it cool, then cut into shapes resembling cutlets.

  3. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

  2. Drain briefly, arrange on a hot dish, and garnish with a small claw from the lobster.

  3. Fry the parsley briefly in the fat and use it as a garnish, or serve with a white or Bechamel sauce.

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

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

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

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

  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
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the cutlet filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that sets and browns when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a firm base that holds the cutlet shape.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and is used as the frying fat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before cutting and coating. Cooling lets the starch-thickened base set firm; if it is still warm and soft, the cutlets will break or slump when dipped and fried.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, cream, 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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