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Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad of lettuce, endive, beetroot, cucumber, hard‑boiled eggs, and lobster, dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, anchovy sauce, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Wash the salad greens and dry them by shaking in a cloth.

  2. Cut the lettuces and endive, then pour the dressing over them and mix lightly.

Add the lobster

  1. Blend the salad with the lobster meat.

  2. Pick the meat from the claws, cut it into square pieces, and add half to the salad, reserving the other half for garnish.

Prepare the garnish and serve

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the hard‑boiled eggs, chop the whites finely, and sieve the yolks.

  2. Arrange the salad on a glass dish and garnish with sliced cucumber, lobster pieces, egg yolks, egg whites, beetroot, and coral in contrasting groups.

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

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

  2. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Endive + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuces
Form the crisp bulk of the salad and carry the dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and mustard to thicken the dressing.
Oil
Provides fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Made mustard
Helps emulsify the dressing and adds a sharp, pungent note.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add soft, mild richness and contrasting texture as garnish.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing into the greens. Mix lightly so the leaves stay crisp and unbruised. Overworking wilts the greens and releases water, leaving the salad limp and diluted.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, endive, beetroot, egg, vinegar, mustard. 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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