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Lobster Rissoles

Lobster rissole is a fried ball made from lobster meat, egg yolks, and a batter of milk, flour, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lobster Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the lobster meat finely.

  2. Pound the coral smooth and grate the yolks of the eggs.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Make a batter with the milk, flour, and egg; beat well.

  5. Gradually mix the lobster into the batter until stiff enough to form.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll into balls the size of a large plum.

  2. Fry in a chafing dish with fresh butter and serve hot or cold.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 meat
Forms the main body of the rissole and provides its flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter so the mixture holds its shape when rolled and fried.
Flour
Thickens the milk and egg batter, giving the mixture enough body to hold together.
Milk
Makes the batter loose and moist, keeping the rissoles tender inside.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly, creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the lobster into the batter. Adding the lobster slowly lets the batter absorb it evenly, so the mixture becomes stiff enough to shape without turning lumpy or too wet to roll.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, egg, pepper, milk, flour, butter. 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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