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Lobster Salad

A chilled salad of lobster meat mixed with an egg-based dressing, served on lettuce leaves and garnished with capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. If using canned lobster, remove it from the can at least 2 hours before serving.

  2. Remove bones and separate the lobster meat into small pieces with a fork.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs until light.

  2. Gradually add salad oil until the mixture is thick.

  3. Thin the mixture with vinegar.

  4. Stir in mustard and salt.

  5. Boil the mixture until thick.

  6. Add a little cold vinegar.

  7. Let the dressing cool completely.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour dressing over the lobster and mix thoroughly.

  2. Place a spoonful of lobster on a lettuce leaf.

  3. Top the lobster with dressing.

  4. Garnish with capers.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Their proteins bind the oil and vinegar into a stable, thick emulsion.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its richness and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that thins the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together as a smooth emulsion.
Lobster meat
The main protein, providing the salad's sweet flavor and tender texture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. Heat sets the egg proteins and thickens the dressing, but excessive heat can make the egg curdle into lumps, so the boil must be controlled.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Chivefits less well

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