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Lobster Cutlets

Lobster cutlets made with lobster meat, white sauce, cream of celery, cornmeal, and butter, served with boiled potatoes and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and chop it finely.

  2. Mix the lobster meat with white sauce and cream of celery.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Coat the cutlets with cornmeal.

  3. Fry in butter or margarine until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled potatoes and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 protein that forms the body of the cutlet.
White sauce
Binds the chopped lobster so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Cream of celery
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the lobster filling.
Cornmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Butter or margarine
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning.
Powdered sugar
Adds a light sweetness on the finished cutlets.

The step that matters

Fry in butter or margarine until golden brown. The cornmeal coating browns through Maillard reactions, which need enough heat and dry surface. Frying too cool makes the cutlets greasy and soft, while frying too hot can scorch the coating before the lobster filling warms through.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, cream, potato, butter, sugar):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, cream, potato, butter, sugar. 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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