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Lobster Salad

A salad of diced lobster, lettuce, mayonnaise, hard‑boiled eggs, anchovies, capers, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and endive share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Split the lobster lengthwise and remove all the meat from the shell and claws.

  2. Cut the lobster meat into neat dice.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Trim, wash, and drain the lettuce.

  2. Break the lettuce into pieces.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Arrange the lettuce at the bottom of a bowl.

  2. Alternate layers of lobster and lettuce, seasoning each layer with tarragon, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour a layer of mayonnaise sauce over the top.

  4. Decorate with anchovies, capers, and quartered 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. Watercress + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  4. Endive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty texture and flavour of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture, binding the salad together with a creamy coating.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base and layers that give the salad its fresh texture.
Hard boiled eggs
Add a soft, creamy texture and mild richness as a garnish.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, sauce, egg, pepper, watercress, endive, capers):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Lettucethe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, sauce, egg, pepper, watercress, endive, capers. 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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