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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster and lettuce topped with a butter, mustard, cayenne, sugar, and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Layer the picked lobsters and cut lettuce in a dish.

  2. Boil the eggs and mash the yolks.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the yolks with melted butter, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Add sugar and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Heat the mixture together.

Serve

  1. Pour the heated mixture over the salad when served.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provides the main sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds the lobster and dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and cuts the richness of the butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture together. Egg yolks thicken when gently warmed but can curdle or scramble if overheated, and butter can separate. Heating slowly and stirring keeps the dressing smooth and pourable.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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