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Lobster Cutlets

A fried dish of lobster meat formed into cutlets and coated with egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the flesh from the lobster.

  2. Chop the lobster flesh into small pieces.

  3. Pound the lobster spawn with 4 oz. of butter.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the cutlet mixture

  1. Melt 1 oz. of butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the flour.

  2. Add the milk. Boil the mixture well.

  3. Add the lobster, cream, spawn, cayenne, and salt to the mixture. Mix the mixture well.

  4. Turn the mixture onto a plate to cool until firm enough to mold.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Cover the cutlets with egg and breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets on a serving dish.

  2. Place a piece of lobster feeler in each cutlet to represent a bone.

  3. Garnish with fried 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the cutlet filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the cutlet mixture tender and moist.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a binding base that sets when cooled.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a thick sauce that holds the lobster together.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture until firm before shaping. The flour-thickened sauce must set as it cools; if shaped while still soft, the cutlets will slump and may break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, flour, milk, cream, egg, 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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