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Lobster Salad

A salad of cooked lobster, hard‑boiled egg, lettuce, and a dressing of olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, mix olive oil, mustard, vinegar, salt, and the hard boiled egg, then beat the mixture until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the chopped lobster and lettuce (or cucumber or tomato).

  2. Season to taste and serve.

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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and flavour of the salad.
Hard boiled egg
Its yolk gives the dressing body and a creamy, emulsified texture.
Olive oil
Forms the fat base of the dressing, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp, savoury bite.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil and egg.

The step that matters

Beat the dressing until well combined. Beating the oil, mustard, vinegar and egg together helps form a stable emulsion. If it is under-mixed, the oil and vinegar separate and the dressing turns greasy and thin.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, mustard, vinegar, egg, 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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