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Lobster Salad

A salad of cooked lobster served in lettuce leaves with dressing, tomato slices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Season the cut lobster as you would chicken.

  2. Remove the leaves from the head of lettuce and wash them individually in a large pan of cold water.

  3. Soak the washed leaves in ice water for 10 minutes, then shake them in a wire basket to remove excess water.

  4. Store the lettuce leaves in the ice chest until ready to serve.

Assemble and serve

  1. When ready, arrange two or three leaves together to form a shell on a flat dish.

  2. Mix a portion of the dressing with the lobster and place a tablespoon of this mixture in each lettuce shell.

  3. Top each spoonful of lobster with a teaspoon of dressing.

  4. Ensure there is two-thirds lobster to one-third lettuce.

  5. Garnish the dish with tomato slices that have been dipped in vinegar.

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. Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together692 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and body of the salad.
Head of lettuce
Forms crisp, cool shells that hold the lobster mixture.
Dressing
Adds moisture and flavor that coats the lobster.
Tomato
Adds juicy acidity and freshness as a garnish.

The step that matters

Drying the lettuce leaves. Leftover water dilutes the dressing and makes the leaf shells limp, so the leaves must be shaken dry before assembly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, lettuce, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, vinegar. 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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