Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: lobster; mayonnaise; lettuce; salt; pepper

Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lobster until done, then cool and remove the meat from the shell.
Chop the lobster meat into bite-sized pieces.
In a bowl, combine the lobster meat with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper to taste.
Serve the lobster mixture on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,247 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).