Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: coral of 1 hen lobster; ½ cup mayonnaise or English salad dressing; small salad herbs or young lettuces; flesh of 1 large lobster or 2 medium-sized lobsters; 2 hard-boiled eggs

Why it works: Lobster and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 411 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

coral of 1 hen lobster
½ cup mayonnaise or English salad dressing
small salad herbs or young lettuces
flesh of 1 large lobster or 2 medium-sized lobsters
2 hard-boiled eggs

Directions

Pound the coral of the lobster and rub it through a sieve.
Gradually mix the coral with the mayonnaise or salad dressing.
Fill a bowl with small salad herbs or finely shredded young lettuces.
Arrange alternate slices of lobster flesh and thinly cut hard-boiled eggs spirally or in a chain on top of the greens.
Leave a space in the center and pour in the sauce.
Heap some small salad on top and serve immediately.

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.

Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,484 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).