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Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster meat, lettuce, and a creamy yolk dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs, salt, pepper, oil, mustard, and vinegar. Mix until smooth and creamy.

Prepare the salad

  1. Mash the lobster meat with a little cold water to soften it.

  2. Chop the lettuce into small pieces.

  3. Mix the chopped lettuce with the lobster meat.

  4. Season the mixture with cayenne pepper and salt.

Serve

  1. Combine the lobster and lettuce with the dressing just before serving.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their lecithin helps oil and vinegar bind into a smooth, creamy dressing.
Oil
Supplies fat that gives the dressing its richness and silky body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury note.
Lobster meat
Provides the main protein and the delicate, sweet flavour of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp, fresh texture and bulk to the salad.

The step that matters

Dress the salad just before serving. Acid and salt in the dressing draw water out of lettuce, so it wilts and turns limp if it sits. Holding the dressing until the last moment keeps the leaves crisp.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Lettucethe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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