Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lobster Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the flesh from the body and claws of the lobster and cut it into dice.
Mix the lobster with some mayonnaise sauce and finely shredded lettuce.
Heap the mixture in a salad bowl.
Decorate with pieces of endive or very young, crisp lettuce leaves and hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters.
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.
-
Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together284 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
-
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together411 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
-
Sauce + endivetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together129 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,019 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the endive
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, lettuce, egg):
- Mustardfits about as well
- Endivethe original
- Beetrootfits about as well
- Horseradishfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, lettuce, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More lobster salad recipes
You might also like
Lobster Sauce174 recipes
Lobster Croquettes99 recipes
Creamy Lettuce Soup8 recipes
Lettuce Soup8 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.