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Lobster Salad

A chilled salad of lobster, lettuce, and a mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 lobster

  1. Boil the lobster, break it in two, and drain.

  2. Remove all the flesh from the shell and chop into small pieces.

  3. In a bowl, mix the lobster with chopped lettuce, salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, and a little oil.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the raw egg yolk lightly.

  2. Add the hard-boiled yolks while stirring.

  3. Gradually add the olive oil, continuing to stir.

  4. Add the mustard, salt, pepper, and vinegar to the mayonnaise mixture and beat until light.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the lobster salad just before serving.

  2. Garnish with boiled egg white, celery tops, and small 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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 meaty texture and flavor.
Raw egg yolk
Acts as the emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together in the dressing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, emulsified into the dressing for a smooth texture.
English mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilize the emulsion of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.

The step that matters

Gradually add the olive oil while stirring. Adding oil slowly while stirring lets the egg yolk emulsify it into a stable, smooth dressing. Pouring too fast can cause the mixture to separate and look oily.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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