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Lobster Salad

A salad of shredded lobster, hard‑boiled eggs, lettuce, and a dressing of vinegar, salt, mustard, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove the meat from the lobster and shred it with two forks.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the eggs for 6 minutes, then cool them.

  2. Mash the eggs smooth with a spoon.

  3. Add vinegar, salt, mustard, and salad oil to the mashed eggs and stir well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Incorporate the lobster meat until it forms a solid mass.

  2. Finely mince the lettuce and stir it in just before serving.

  3. Garnish with lobster claws and parsley.

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. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the salad and gives it its seafood flavour and bulk.
Hard-boiled eggs
Mashed into a smooth base that binds the lobster and adds richness.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour and helping the egg base hold together.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the eggs and oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the richness of the eggs and oil.
Lettuce
Adds a crisp, fresh texture and light bulk to the salad.

The step that matters

Incorporate the lobster meat until it forms a solid mass. Mixing too little leaves the salad loose and uneven, while overworking the shredded lobster can make it mushy. Stir gently until the egg dressing evenly coats the meat and the mixture holds together.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, vinegar, mustard, lettuce. 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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