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Lobster Salad

A chilled salad of lobster meat with a dressing of egg yolk, mustard, oil, vinegar, and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the lobster until cooked, then cool and remove the meat from the shell.

  2. Line a salad bowl with lettuce leaves and add the lobster meat.

  3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, beat the egg yolks with salt, sugar, mustard, and white pepper.

  2. Stir in the oil and vinegar until well combined.

  3. For a richer dressing, fold in the whipped cream just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a smooth, thick body.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor into the dressing.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Prepared mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together and adds a sharp, tangy flavor.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds a softer, richer texture when folded in.

The step that matters

Stir in the oil and vinegar until well combined. Adding oil too quickly or without enough mixing can cause the dressing to separate. Slowly whisking the oil into the yolk mixture lets the emulsion form and stay smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, egg, sugar, mustard, butter, 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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