Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: boiled lobster meat; shredded lettuce leaves; ½ cup mayonnaise dressing; curly lettuce leaves; powdered coral of the lobster (optional)

Why it works: Lobster and meat work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 909 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

boiled lobster meat
shredded lettuce leaves
½ cup mayonnaise dressing
curly lettuce leaves
powdered coral of the lobster (optional)

Directions

Cut the boiled lobster meat into even pieces.
Marinate the lobster and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Mix the lobster with shredded lettuce and mayonnaise dressing in a ratio of ½ cup dressing to 1 pint of salad.
Serve on curly lettuce leaves, garnished with additional dressing and powdered coral if desired.
Serve immediately after mixing.

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.

Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Meat + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).