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Lobster Salad

A salad of mashed potato, egg yolks, mustard, salt, pepper, green lobster fat, lobster meat, lettuce, vinegar, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 dressing

  1. Boil the potato until tender, then mash it very fine.

  2. Mix the mashed potato with the egg yolks until smooth.

  3. Stir in the salt, mustard, and pepper.

Make the salad

  1. Add the green fat from the lobster and chopped lobster meat, reserving the claws for garnish.

  2. Lay the outer leaves of the lettuce on a serving dish.

  3. Chop the remaining lettuce and mix it with the dressing and lobster mixture.

  4. Add the vinegar and mix thoroughly.

  5. Garnish the dish with sliced hard-boiled eggs and the reserved lobster 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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  3. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Potato
Mashed fine, it thickens the dressing and gives it a smooth, creamy body.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the mashed potato and fat to give the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Lobster meat
Provides the main seafood flavour and tender, chunky texture to the salad.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base and bulk of the salad, adding freshness and a light crunch.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and fat.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg yolks into the mashed potato until smooth. Yolks and potato must be blended thoroughly so the dressing forms a uniform, creamy emulsion rather than lumps or a greasy separation. Adding the vinegar only after the base is smooth keeps it from thinning or breaking the dressing unevenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, lobster, meat, lettuce, 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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