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Lobster Balls

A dish of lobster meat mixed with breadcrumbs, spices, and eggs, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lobster Balls

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Parboil the lobster for 10 minutes per pound.

  2. Remove the meat and coral from the lobster and pound in a mortar.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix the lobster with bread crumbs, curry powder, salt, cayenne pepper, and eggs.

  2. Shape the mixture into balls the size of small potatoes.

  3. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

  4. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  5. Serve on a napkin.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lobster + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together736 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,247 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Hen lobster
Provides the main protein and flavour of the meatballs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture, and form a crisp coating when fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape while cooking.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the lobster.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the meatballs absorb fat and turn greasy before the crust sets. Hot fat sears the outside quickly, forming a crisp, browned coating that holds the delicate lobster mixture together.

“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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