Name: Lobstek Salad
Ingredients: 2 lobsters, picked fine; 4 heads of fresh lettuce, cut fine; 3 tablespoons melted butter; 1 teaspoon mustard; cayenne pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons sugar; 2 cups vinegar

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 ↓

Lobstek Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the picked lobster and cut lettuce in a dish.
Boil the eggs, mash the yolks, and mix with melted butter, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Heat sugar and vinegar together, then pour over the salad when served.

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.

Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

Swap the lettuce

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

Horseradishfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Lettucethe original
Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, butter, mustard, pepper, sugar, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.