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Lobster Salad

A salad of boiled lobster, lettuce, and a dressing of egg yolks, sweet oil, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard 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. Remove the meat from the lobster shells.

  2. Cut the lobster meat into very small pieces.

  3. Chop the lettuce as finely as possible.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sweet oil, vinegar, mustard, cayenne, and salt until well combined.

  2. Just before serving, pour the dressing over the lobster and lettuce and mix thoroughly.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the oil and vinegar into a smooth, creamy dressing.
Sweet oil
Supplies fat that gives the dressing richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the dressing together and add a sharp, pungent bite.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate meat that forms the body of the salad.

The step that matters

Dress just before serving. Vinegar and salt draw moisture from the lettuce and can wilt it, so dressing too early leaves the salad limp and watery.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, vinegar, mustard, 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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