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Lobster Cutlets

A dish of lobster meat formed into cutlets, coated in breadcrumbs, fried, and served with tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the nutmeg, salt, lemon juice, cayenne, and parsley with the lobster meat.

  2. Prepare a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, and gradually whisking in milk until thickened.

  3. Combine the lobster mixture with the white sauce and spread it on a plate to cool.

  4. Once cooled, shape the mixture into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in breadcrumbs.

  2. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg.

  3. Dip each cutlet in breadcrumbs again.

  4. Fry the cutlets in deep fat until golden brown.

  5. Drain the fried cutlets on paper towels.

Garnish and serve

  1. Insert a small lobster claw into the end of each cutlet for garnish.

  2. Serve the cutlets with Sauce Tartare.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its flavour.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that binds the lobster mixture.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating adheres to the cutlet.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when the cutlets are fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft white sauce stays loose and sticky, so the cutlets can slump or split. Chilling firms the starch-thickened sauce so the cutlets hold their shape through breading and frying.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, lemon, pepper, parsley, butter, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, lemon, pepper, parsley, butter, sauce. 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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