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Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad of lettuce and lobster dressed with a mustard, butter, sugar, lemon, and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Wash the lettuce, drain well, and shred into small pieces.

  2. Cut or chop the lobster into small pieces and mix with the lettuce.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat together the yolk of the hard boiled egg until smooth.

  2. Add the raw egg, mustard, pepper, melted butter, sugar, lemon juice, and vinegar to the bowl and mix well.

Assemble

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

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

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 sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds the dressing and lobster together.
Raw egg
Emulsifies with the butter and binds the dressing so it coats the salad evenly.
Hard boiled egg
Its yolk is mashed into a smooth base that thickens and enriches the dressing.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the dressing a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.

The step that matters

Adding the raw egg and melted butter to the yolk. Melted butter must be added gradually while mixing so the fat emulsifies with the egg. Adding it all at once can cause the dressing to separate and look greasy rather than smooth.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, mustard, pepper, butter, sugar, lemon. 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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