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Salad

Dressing for Lobster or Chicken Salad

A vinaigrette dressing made with vinegar, eggs, olive oil, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dressing for Lobster or Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the vinegar, rubbed egg yolks, raw eggs, olive oil, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt together thoroughly.

  2. Pour the dressing over the meat.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw eggs
Bind the dressing into a thick, creamy emulsion as they set gently.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Rubbed smooth, they thicken the dressing and give it a rich, creamy body.
Olive oil
Adds fat for smooth texture and mouthfeel, helping the dressing coat the meat.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and balances the richness of the eggs and oil.
Mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the oil and vinegar together in a stable dressing.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing thoroughly. Oil and vinegar separate unless well combined. Thorough mixing with the egg yolks and mustard creates a stable emulsion that stays smooth and clings to the meat instead of pooling or breaking.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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