Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Salad

A salad of chopped lobster, lettuce, parsley, hard‑boiled eggs, apple, celery, and a creamy butter‑mustard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the lobster, lettuce, parsley, and hard‑boiled eggs finely and mix them together.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter, mustard, salt, pepper, cream, vinegar, and egg.

  2. Heat until thickened.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture over the chopped lobster.

Finish and serve

  1. For a variation, cut the lobster into cubes and mix with chopped apple and celery.

  2. Sprinkle with parsley.

  3. Garnish with lettuce and serve with mayonnaise seasoned with dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper, and salt.

  4. While beating the mayonnaise, add a clove of garlic.

  5. Remove the garlic once done.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thickens the dressing as they set with heat, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the dressing.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dressing's texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavour of the salad.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing until thickened. Egg proteins set with gentle heat and can scramble if overheated, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, thick dressing. Stir constantly over low heat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, parsley, egg, butter, pepper, cream. 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.

More lobster salad recipes

Dressing 7Cold 3 See all 290 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipes