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Lobster Salad

Salad of lobster meat, lettuce, and a creamy dressing of oil, vinegar, mustard, and egg yolks, garnished with cucumber pickles, egg rings, parsley, and beet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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. Remove the meat from the lobster shell and cut it into square pieces.

  2. Chop the lettuce and mix it with the lobster meat.

Make and add the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, mustard, egg yolks, pepper, and salt, then whisk until smooth to form a creamy dressing.

  2. Pour the dressing over the lobster and lettuce mixture.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with sliced cucumber pickles, egg rings, parsley, and cold beet cut into fancy shapes.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its rich, sweet flavour.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a creamy, smooth texture.
Oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and vinegar together in the dressing.

The step that matters

Whisking the dressing until smooth. Egg yolks, mustard and oil must be whisked together gradually so they form a stable emulsion. If the oil is added too fast or the mix is under-whisked, the dressing can separate and look greasy rather than creamy.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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