Name: Lobster Salad. No. 1
Ingredients: meat of 6 lobsters; salt to taste; pepper to taste; vinegar to taste; 6 hard boiled eggs; 3 heads of lettuce; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the lobster meat into squares.
Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.
Cut the hard boiled eggs into pieces.
Chop the lettuce.

Assemble and serve

Layer lettuce, lobster, and eggs in a serving dish.
Top with mayonnaise dressing 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.

Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + lobstertop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat: Provides the main protein and sweet flavour of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Lettuce: Adds crisp texture and fresh bulk to the layers.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad with a creamy coating.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, pepper, vinegar, egg):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Lettucethe original

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