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Lobster Salad

A salad of cooked lobster, dressed with olive oil, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and chopped hard‑boiled egg, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Cook the lobster and let it cool.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Chop the hard-boiled egg and add it to the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Toss the lobster with the dressing and 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.

  1. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 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 and provides its meaty texture.
Olive oil
Carries the flavor of the dressing and coats the lobster with richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps the oil and vinegar stay emulsified.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds a soft, creamy texture and body to the dressing.

The step that matters

Let the lobster cool before tossing it with the dressing. Warm lobster can make the oil separate and the dressing thin and greasy, and it can soften the egg. Cooling the lobster first keeps the dressing better emulsified and the texture firmer.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Lettucethe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. 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.

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