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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of lobster, cos lettuce, egg yolk sauce, and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the lobsters in large pieces.

  2. Chop the cos lettuces and place them in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mash the egg yolks and soften with water.

  2. Add mustard to the egg mixture and mix well.

  3. Slowly incorporate the salad oil until well combined.

  4. Add vinegar, tarragon vinegar, essence of anchovy, pepper, and salt to the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice the lobster meat thinly and mix it with the salad greens.

  2. Serve the salad on plates and drizzle the sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, and Spanish onions.

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. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provide the main protein, with sweet, tender meat that forms the body of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and mustard to give the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Salad oil
Supplies fat that, emulsified into the yolks, gives the dressing its smooth richness.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays combined with the yolk mixture.
Cos lettuces
Provide the crisp, watery leaves that give the salad its fresh crunch.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil and yolk.

The step that matters

Slowly incorporate the salad oil. Adding oil too fast to the yolk and mustard mixture can break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated dressing instead of a smooth, thick sauce.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, mustard, vinegar, tarragon, anchovy, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, mustard, vinegar, tarragon, anchovy, pepper. 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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