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Lobster Salad

A salad of canned lobster, hard‑boiled eggs, optional lettuce, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, vinegar, and dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the canned lobster in cold water using a colander until thoroughly washed.

  2. Break the lobster into medium-sized pieces.

Assemble and serve

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs and add them to the lobster.

  2. If using, add a little lettuce.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little vinegar.

  4. Mix well a few minutes before serving, then cover with dressing.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together692 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Canned lobster
Forms the main body of the salad and supplies its savory, meaty flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture that bulks out the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the seafood and eggs.
Dressing
Adds moisture and fat, binding the salad and carrying its seasoning.

Swap the lettuce

The recipe marks lettuce as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, pepper, vinegar. 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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Dressing 7Cold 3 See all 290 →

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