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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster, celery, mayonnaise, hard boiled eggs, capers, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lobster meat into pieces ½ inch square.

  2. Wash and dry the celery, then chop it to the same size.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine the lobster and celery in a salad bowl.

  2. Smooth the mixture with a rounded top.

  3. Spread mayonnaise dressing over the top.

  4. Decorate the salad with quarters of hard boiled eggs.

  5. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of capers over the salad.

  6. Arrange tender lettuce leaves around the edge of the bowl.

  7. If using fresh lobster, ornament with the head or claws.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lobster + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its rich, meaty flavor.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft lobster.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and richness that binds the salad together.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds creamy texture and mild richness to the salad.
Capers
Adds a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Cut the lobster and celery to the same size. Even pieces mix and bite evenly, so the texture is consistent in every forkful and no single ingredient overwhelms the others.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, capers, lettuce. 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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