Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: 1 nice sized lobster; 2 lettuces; 1 small cucumber; 1 hard-boiled egg; 1 small beetroot; Mayonnaise sauce

Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the meat from the body of the lobster and cut it into dice shapes.
Save the lobster head and shell for garnishing.
Wash the lettuces thoroughly and dry them by shaking in a cloth.
Keep the small hearts of the lettuces for garnishing and shred the remainder finely.

Assemble the salad

Layer the shredded lettuce in a salad bowl.
Mix about ½ cup of mayonnaise sauce with the lobster and layer it on top of the lettuce.
Add more sauce, then another layer of salad, lobster, and sauce.
Finish with a layer of finely shredded lettuce on top.

Garnish and serve

Stand the lobster head in the center and garnish with claws, boiled beetroot cut into fancy shapes, and quarters of hard-boiled egg.
Sprinkle with lobster coral that has been rubbed through a sieve.
Add sliced cucumber and any suitable garnish like small salad or cress.
For a more elaborate presentation, add a few prawns.

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.

Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 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: Provides the main sweet, tender seafood meat that forms the body of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the lobster and coating the layers with moisture.
Lettuces: Forms the crisp, fresh base and layers that give the salad its texture.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds a firm, mild richness and contrasting texture as a garnish.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, lettuce, egg, beetroot, sauce):

Horseradishfits better
Mustardfits better
Spinachfits about as well
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, egg, beetroot, sauce. 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.