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Lobster Salad

A custard‑based salad with lobster, lettuce, and a dressing of egg yolks, sugar, butter, vinegar, mustard, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg whites separately and set aside.

  2. In a bowl over a kettle of simmering water, combine the egg yolks, sugar, butter, salt, vinegar, and mustard. Stir until the mixture thickens.

  3. Once cooled, add enough cream to achieve a consistency similar to boiled custard.

Assemble the salad

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the chopped lobster and lettuce with salt and red pepper to taste.

  2. Combine the lobster mixture with the custard dressing.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the dressing into a custard as they cook gently over heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the cooked dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich custard dressing.
Cream
Thins the cooled custard to a pourable consistency that coats the lobster.
Chopped lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the salad.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over simmering water. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the water boils or the bowl touches it directly, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing. Stir steadily and keep the heat low.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, vinegar, cream, pepper, lobster. 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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