Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: 1 medium lobster; 2 tablespoons best olive oil; 3 tablespoons vinegar; 3 teaspoons mustard; a sprinkle of cayenne pepper; 1 hard-boiled egg; lettuce for garnish

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Cook the lobster and remove the meat.

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mix olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.
Chop the hard-boiled egg and add it to the mixture.

Assemble and serve

Toss the lobster meat in the dressing.
Serve on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster: Provides the main protein and the meat that makes up the salad.
Olive oil: Carries the flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Mustard: Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp flavour.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.

Swap the lettuce

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Lettucethe original
Horseradishfits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well

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