Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: lobster tails and claws; oil; vinegar; pepper; salt; lobster butter

Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Break the shells and remove the meat from the lobster tails and claws.
In a bowl, combine the lobster meat with a little oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.
Spread a circular layer of lobster butter on the bottom of a dish, about 7 inches in diameter and ¼ inch thick.
Scoop out the center of the lobster butter, leaving a circular band.
Drain the lobster meat on a cloth and cut it into oval scallops.
Use some lobster butter to stick the pieces together and pile the lobster in three rows.

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.

Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together692 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).