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Croquettes of Lobster

Fried lobster meat croquettes made with breadcrumbs, spices, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Croquettes of Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound or chop the fleshy part of the lobster finely.

  2. Add ¼ cup sifted bread crumbs, season with pepper, salt, anchovy, and a little mace.

  3. Mix in vinegar or lemon juice and cream if available.

  4. Warm the mixture and beat in the egg yolk.

Shape and fry

  1. When cool, shape into round or oval balls or flat cakes.

  2. Dip in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

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. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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 body and flavor of the croquette filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness to hold the shaped croquettes together.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich lobster flavor.

The step that matters

Shape and dip after the mixture cools. A warm mixture is soft and sticky, so it will not hold its shape or take the egg and crumb coating evenly. Letting it cool firms the filling so the croquettes stay intact in the hot lard.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, bread, pepper, anchovy, vinegar, cream, egg. 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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