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Lobster Salad

A salad of lettuce, endive, beetroot, cucumber, and lobster meat dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, anchovy sauce, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing and salad

  1. Mix the dressing ingredients (oil, vinegar, mustard, egg yolks, cayenne, salt, anchovy sauce) together to form a creamy sauce.

  2. Wash the salad and thoroughly dry it by shaking it in a cloth.

  3. Cut up the lettuces and endive.

  4. Pour the dressing on the lettuce and endive and lightly throw in the small salad.

  5. Mix all well together with the pickings from the body of the lobster.

Prepare the lobster and eggs

  1. Pick the meat from the shell, cut it into nice square pieces, put half in the salad, reserve the other half for garnishing.

  2. Separate the yolks from the whites of 2 hard‑boiled eggs.

  3. Chop the whites very fine.

  4. Rub the yolks through a sieve, and afterwards the coral from the inside.

Arrange and garnish

  1. Arrange the salad lightly on a glass dish.

  2. Garnish first with a row of sliced cucumber, then with the pieces of lobster, the yolks and whites of the eggs, coral, and beetroot placed alternately, arranged in small separate bunches.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

671Calories
60 gProtein
46 gFat
3 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Anchovy100g210
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Shrimp100g cooked99
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify the dressing, giving it a creamy, thick body.
Oil
Fat that blends with the yolks and mustard to form a smooth, creamy dressing.
Lobster
Provides the main sweet, tender meat that the salad is built around.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the dressing.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing to a creamy sauce. Oil must be added slowly to the yolks and mustard so it emulsifies; added too fast, the dressing separates and loses its smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, sauce, butter, cream, lobster, egg, vinegar):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, sauce, butter, cream, lobster, egg, 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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