Name: Lobster and Crab Served Cold
Ingredients: 3 hard-boiled egg yolks; spawn of 1 lobster; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ⅓ cup sweet olive oil; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; 3 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1 teaspoon anchovy sauce

Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster and Crab Served Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Remove the claws from the lobster and crack them at the joints.
Open the body and tail with a sharp knife, removing the dark vein and the lady.
Arrange the edible portions neatly on a dish.

Make the sauce

In a bowl, mash the egg yolks and lobster spawn into a paste.
Mix in salt, cayenne, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and anchovy sauce until well combined.
Serve the sauce in a salad bowl alongside the lobster and crab.

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.

Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + mustardtop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks: Mash into a paste that thickens and emulsifies the dressing.
Sweet olive oil: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce body.
Lobster spawn: Adds richness and a rich, savoury flavour to the paste.
Prepared mustard: Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar and adds sharpness.
Cider vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Mixing the sauce until well combined. Oil must be incorporated gradually into the mashed yolk paste so it emulsifies; adding it too quickly or not mixing thoroughly can cause the sauce to separate and look greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Mustardthe original
Cucumberfits less well
Lettucefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lobster, pepper, olive, cider, vinegar, anchovy. 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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Lobster and Crab Served Cold