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Lobster Croquettes

Lobster croquettes are fried balls of lobster meat mixed with breadcrumbs, spices, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the mixture

  1. Chop the meat of a boiled lobster finely.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and powdered mace to the lobster meat.

  3. Mix in ¼ cup of bread crumbs for every cup of lobster meat and the melted butter.

  4. Form the mixture into pointed balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the balls in the beaten eggs, then in the pulverized cracker.

  2. Fry the croquettes in butter until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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

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

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the croquette filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold its shape.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps browning in the pan.
Beaten eggs
Bind the coating so the cracker crumbs stick to the balls.
Pulverized cracker
Forms a crisp outer crust when fried, adding browning and texture.

The step that matters

Frying the coated croquettes in butter until golden. Frying at too low a heat lets the coating absorb fat and turn greasy, while too high a heat browns the outside before the filling is heated through. Steady medium heat gives an even golden crust.

Swap the mace

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

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

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