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Lobster Croquettes

Lobster croquettes are fried oblong cakes made from boiled lobster, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, salt, cayenne, and optional mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Lobster Croquettes

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Lobster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the lobster meat finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the lobster, bread crumbs, melted butter, salt, cayenne, and the yolk of 1 egg.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into oblong croquettes.

  2. Beat the remaining egg and dip the croquettes in it, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in boiling fat until light brown.

  2. Drain on clean paper before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 flavour and the body of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and form a coating that helps the crumbs stick.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and absorb moisture, giving the croquettes a firm shape.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and aids browning.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling fat until light brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp and brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil, turn greasy, and may fall apart before the coating sets.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, bread, butter, pepper. 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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