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Lobster a LA Tartare

A dish of boiled lobster pieces tossed with tartare sauce and served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster a LA Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil fresh lobsters for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Cut the lobsters into small square pieces and place them in a bowl.

Serve

  1. Pour the tartare sauce over the lobster.

  2. Garnish the dish with lettuce leaves.

  3. Do not mix until ready to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lobsters
Provides the main protein, cooked and cut into pieces that form the body of the dish.
Tartare sauce
Adds moisture, richness and acidity that flavour the lobster pieces.

The step that matters

Do not mix until ready to serve. Tartare sauce is mayonnaise-based and can thin or separate if stirred too early, and the cut lobster can release liquid that dilutes it. Mixing just before serving keeps the sauce thick and the texture clean.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, 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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