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Lobster Salad

A chilled lobster salad dressed with homemade mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster until cooked, then cool and remove the shell.

  2. Cut the lobster meat into cakes and chill on ice for 1 hour.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. For the mayonnaise, stir the cold egg yolk in a bowl.

  2. Slowly add olive oil drop by drop, then by half teaspoonfuls until thickened.

  3. Add vinegar or lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne to the mayonnaise.

  4. Keep the mayonnaise on ice until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Pour the mayonnaise over the chilled lobster and serve.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the olive oil into the mayonnaise, giving it a thick, stable texture.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase of the mayonnaise, giving it richness and body.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet flavour of the salad.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mayonnaise and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil to the egg yolk. Oil must be added very slowly at first, because the yolk can only emulsify small droplets at a time. Adding oil too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving a runny, separated sauce instead of a thick mayonnaise.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, olive, vinegar, pepper. 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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