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Salad

Lobster Salad

A chilled lobster salad with an egg yolk, mustard, olive oil, vinegar dressing, garnished with egg white, celery tops, and claws.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the raw egg yolk lightly in a bowl.

  2. Add the hard-boiled egg yolks and continue beating.

  3. Gradually add the olive oil, a few drops at a time, while stirring constantly.

  4. Mix in the mustard, salt, and pepper, and beat until light.

  5. Add the vinegar and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the lobster into small pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour the dressing over the lobster just before serving.

  3. Garnish with boiled egg white, celery tops, and small claws.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the salad, providing the meat that the dressing coats.
Raw egg yolk
Acts as the emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together in a thick dressing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and body to the dressing and help stabilise the emulsion.
Olive oil
Supplies fat and creamy body, emulsified into the yolks to form the dressing.
English mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the olive oil, a few drops at a time, while stirring constantly.. Adding oil too quickly before the yolks have absorbed it can break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated dressing instead of a smooth, thick one.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, olive, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, olive, mustard, pepper, vinegar. 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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