Why it works: Lobster and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 411 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Lobster Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Boil the lobsters until cooked, then cool completely.
Remove the meat from the lobsters and cut it into small squares.
Chill the lobster meat until ready to use.
Assemble and serve
Mix the lobster meat with the mayonnaise dressing in a bowl.
Transfer the mixture to a serving dish and garnish with lettuce leaves.
Finely mash the coral and sprinkle it over the salad.
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.
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Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together411 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lobsters
- Provide the main protein and sweet, firm meat that forms the body of the salad.
- Mayonnaise dressing
- Adds moisture and richness, binding the lobster pieces together with a creamy coating.
- Coral
- Contributes concentrated flavour and a rich, savoury aroma from the lobster's roe-like tomalley.
The step that matters
Cool the lobsters completely before handling. Cooling firms the meat and stops residual heat from warming the mayonnaise when mixed, which would thin the dressing and make it greasy.
“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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