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Lobster Salad

A salad of boiled lobster meat mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, milk, celery, and sugar, served on lettuce.

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

  1. Boil small lobsters in warm water for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the meat from the shells and claws, and cut it into blocks.

  3. Let the lobster meat cool thoroughly.

Assemble the salad

  1. Mix about ¾ of the mayonnaise dressing with the lobster meat.

  2. Make a nest of lettuce on a serving dish.

  3. Place the lobster mixture in the center of the lettuce nest.

  4. Cover with the remaining mayonnaise dressing.

  5. Garnish with small tufts of lettuce and the smaller 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 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

Small lobsters
Provides the main protein and sweet flavor, with firm, tender meat once cooked.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and richness, binding the lobster meat together and coating it.
Lettuce
Forms a crisp base that holds the salad and adds fresh contrast in texture.

The step that matters

Let the lobster meat cool thoroughly. Warm meat melts and thins mayonnaise, so the dressing can turn oily, loose and separate. Fully cooled meat keeps the dressing thick and creamy and holds the salad together.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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