Why it works: Lettuce and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,559 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lobster Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Add the chopped whites of hard-boiled eggs to a bowl.
Mix in the mayonnaise until well combined.
Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves.
Garnish with large pieces of lobster meat, slices of lemon, slices of hard-boiled egg, and yolks pressed through a tea sieve.
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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Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,559 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together909 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Lettuce + lobstertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together411 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Lettuce + meattop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together579 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lettuce, lobster, meat):
- Lemonthe original
- Avocadofits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Limefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lettuce, lobster, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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