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Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad made with lobster meat, mashed potato, egg yolks, mustard, and vinegar, served on lettuce.

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 base

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

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

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

  4. Add the green fat from the lobster to the mixture.

Make the salad

  1. Chop the lobster meat.

  2. Reserve the lobster claws for garnish.

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

  4. Chop the remaining lettuce.

  5. Add the chopped lettuce to the lobster mixture.

  6. Mix thoroughly.

  7. Add the vinegar while mixing.

  8. 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 potato gives the base body and a smooth, thick texture.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks bind the mashed potato into a smooth, creamy mixture.
Prepared mustard
Mustard adds sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Lobster meat
Lobster meat is the main protein, providing sweet flavour and texture.
Lettuce
Chopped lettuce adds crisp texture and fresh bulk to the salad.
Vinegar
Vinegar adds acidity that brightens the creamy dressing.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar while mixing. Adding vinegar gradually while mixing lets it blend evenly into the egg and potato base. Adding it all at once can split or thin the creamy mixture.

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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