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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster, gherkins, olives, mayonnaise dressing, lettuce, and hard boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of lobster and place it on a plate.

  2. Pick the lobster into pieces, removing all bones.

  3. Chop the gherkins and olives, then add them to the lobster.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then chill in the refrigerator.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, mix with Mayonnaise Dressing.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce and garnish with hard boiled eggs.

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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + olivetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its savory flavor and texture.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture that bind the salad and keep the lobster from drying out.
Gherkins
Add acidity and a crisp, tangy bite that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Just before serving, mix with Mayonnaise Dressing.. Mayonnaise thins and can become watery or separate if it sits too long with the lobster and pickled items. Adding it shortly before serving keeps the salad creamy and the lettuce from wilting.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, olive, pepper, egg. 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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