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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster, eggs, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster until tender, then cut it into small pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg until light.

  2. Add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and mix well.

  3. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while stirring continuously.

  4. Add the ground mustard, salt, and pepper, and beat until light.

  5. Stir in the vinegar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the lobster pieces.

  2. Garnish with sliced egg whites and celery leaves just before serving.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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
Forms the main body of the salad, providing the meat that the dressing coats.
Egg
Beaten in as the base that emulsifies the olive oil into a thick, creamy dressing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the oil and egg into a smooth, stable emulsion.
Olive oil
Provides fat and body, giving the dressing its smooth, rich texture when drizzled in slowly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing and balances the fat.
Ground mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and egg together and adds a sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while stirring continuously. Oil added too fast cannot be absorbed by the egg mixture, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns thin and greasy instead of thick and creamy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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