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Lobster Salad

A salad made with lobster, salad greens, hard‑boiled egg yolks, butter or oil, mustard, pepper, sugar, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smooth.

  2. Add mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and melted butter or oil to the yolks, then mix in the vinegar.

Assemble the salad

  1. Chop the lobster and egg whites finely.

  2. Combine the mixture with the lobster and mix well.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and body of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the smooth, creamy dressing.
Melted butter or oil
Adds fat that makes the dressing rich and coats the lobster.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the dressing together and add sharpness.

The step that matters

Rub the yolks smooth before adding fat. Yolks mashed fully smooth before the butter or oil goes in form a stable emulsion. Lumps or adding fat too fast can cause the dressing to separate or look greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, butter, pepper, sugar, 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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