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Mayonnaise D'homard, or French Lobster Salad

A lobster salad topped with a creamy mayonnaise sauce made from butter, anchovy, cayenne pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mayonnaise D'homard, or French Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Break the boiled lobster and remove the flesh from the tail and claws. Cut into 1.5-inch long and 1-inch wide pieces.

  2. Pound the lobster flesh (or buy separately) with the cream, butter, anchovy, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and spread it on the bottom of a serving dish, reserving some to connect the lobster pieces.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the lobster pieces in layers around the dish, leaving the center hollow.

  2. Fill the center with a salad of lettuce, cresses, endive, and beetroot, shaping it into a dome.

  3. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs, beetroot, and pieces of boned anchovies.

  4. Pour a generous amount of mayonnaise sauce over the salad.

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Endive + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty flesh and the dish's principal flavour and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the pounded lobster mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, helping the pounded lobster spread smoothly.
Anchovy
Adds salty, savoury depth that enhances the lobster's flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Passing the lobster mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down fibres and removes lumps, giving a smooth, even spread. Skipping it leaves a coarse texture that is harder to layer neatly under the lobster pieces.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, butter, anchovy, pepper, cream, lettuce, endive):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, anchovy, pepper, cream, lettuce, endive. 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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