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Lobster Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Ensure the lobster is fresh and sweet.

  2. Make sure the lettuce is crisp and dry.

  3. Divide the lobster meat into neat pieces and season with pepper, salt, vinegar, and salad oil.

  4. Place a bed of shredded lettuce at the bottom of the dish.

  5. Layer the seasoned lobster on top, adding cucumber slices if desired.

  6. Cover with more lettuce and repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  7. Decorate the borders with your choice of garnish.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, vinegar, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, vinegar, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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