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
Cook the lobsters
Plunge lobsters head downward into boiling water and cook for 45 minutes.
Carefully break the shells and remove the stomach, vein from the tail, and spongy fingers.
Cut the lobster meat into neat pieces.
Assemble and serve
Arrange the lobster pieces on a bed of lettuce.
Cover with mayonnaise dressing and garnish with the lobster claws.
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
- Large lobsters
- Provide the main protein, whose tender meat is the centerpiece of the salad.
- Lettuce
- Forms a crisp bed that gives the salad body and fresh contrast to the rich meat.
- Mayonnaise dressing
- Adds fat and creaminess, moistening the lobster meat and adding richness.
The step that matters
Plunge lobsters head downward into boiling water. Dropping the lobsters headfirst into rapidly boiling water kills them quickly and helps the meat set firm and tender. Cooking them for the full stated time without underdoing or overdoing it keeps the meat moist and avoids a rubbery texture.
“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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