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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster, lettuce, hard‑boiled eggs, and a dressing of mustard, oil, vinegar, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 and dressing

  1. Boil the lobster for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the coral and pound it smooth.

  3. Mix the coral gradually with a dressing made from the yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs, mustard, salad oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, black pepper, cayenne, and 2 fresh egg yolks.

Assemble the salad

  1. Shred the lettuce, reserving the small curled center for garnish, and place it in a salad bowl.

  2. Add the lobster flesh, torn or cut into bits, seasoned with salt and pepper, and a small portion of the dressing.

  3. Pour the remaining dressing over the salad.

  4. Place the lettuce hearts down the center.

  5. Arrange slices of hard-boiled eggs on the sides.

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. 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. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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

Lobster
Provides the main sweet, firm meat that forms the body of the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, creamy dressing that binds the coral.
Salad oil
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing and balances the lobster.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsified dressing.
Lettuce
Provides a crisp, cool base that holds the dressing and lobster.

The step that matters

Mix the coral gradually with the dressing. Adding the coral and dressing slowly lets the yolks emulsify smoothly. Adding it all at once can split the mixture and leave it grainy or thin.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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