Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Curee Ts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lobster mixture
Season the lobster meat with salt and pepper.
Heat the butter in a pan.
Add the flour to the butter and stir until smooth.
Gradually mix in the cream and beaten egg.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the lobster and remove from heat.
Stir in the lemon juice.
Pour the mixture onto a flat dish and let it cool.
Shape and fry
Butter a tin cutlet mold and sprinkle it with bread crumbs.
Press the cooled mixture into the mold and turn it out.
Repeat until all the mixture is used, buttering the mold once and crumbing each time.
Dip each cutlet in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.
Fry the cutlets in boiling oil for about two minutes, adding a small claw to each cutlet for decoration.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,050 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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 body of the cutlets and provides their rich seafood flavor.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the base and helps the mixture stay smooth.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth binding paste that holds the cutlets together.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and softness, giving the mixture a tender, creamy texture.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and forms the coating that helps bread crumbs stick.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden outer crust when the cutlets are fried.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture will not hold its shape in the mold and may fall apart. Cooling lets the starch-thickened base firm up so the cutlets keep their form through coating and frying.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, flour, butter, cream, egg, bread):
- Lemonthe original
- Figfits about as well
- Vanillafits less well
- Raisinfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, flour, butter, cream, 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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