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Lobster Salad

A salad of cooked lobster, lettuce, egg yolks, and a dressing of mustard, sugar, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Chop the lobster finely.

  2. Chop or tear the lettuce into small pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the lobster yolks, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Slowly add the vinegar and then the cream, mixing well.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a serving dish, layer lobster and chopped lettuce, drizzling 3-4 spoonfuls of dressing between layers.

  2. Top with sliced egg whites.

  3. Garnish with whole lettuce leaves and lobster claws.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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 body of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into the dressing, adding richness and a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing.
Lettuce
Provides crisp texture and fresh bulk between the layers.

The step that matters

Slowly add the vinegar and then the cream. Adding acid slowly while mixing keeps the dressing smooth; adding it all at once can cause the cream to thicken unevenly or curdle, and mixing well distributes the mustard and yolk evenly.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, sugar, cream, mustard, vinegar, 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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