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Lobster Salad

A chilled salad of minced lobster and celery mixed with olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and mayonnaise, garnished with lemon, olives, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the celery and lobster separately into small dice.

  2. Mix the minced celery and lobster together.

Make the salad

  1. Moisten the mixture with olive oil and vinegar.

  2. Add pepper and salt, then mix in mayonnaise.

  3. Transfer the salad to a serving dish and smooth the top.

  4. Spread a thick layer of mayonnaise over the salad.

Decorate

  1. Decorate with lemon slices, olives, and parsley sprigs.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked lobster
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad's flavour.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft lobster and mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise
Binds the salad and adds richness and moisture.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture, coating the lobster and celery.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Dice the lobster and celery evenly and keep the mixture moist. Uniform small pieces mix evenly and give a consistent texture in every bite. Adding the oil and vinegar before the mayonnaise helps the seasoning distribute through the salad rather than sitting on the surface.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, olive, vinegar, pepper, lemon, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, olive, vinegar, pepper, lemon, parsley. 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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