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

Directions

Make the sauce

Prepare a sauce by pounding the coral of the lobster and rubbing it through a sieve.
Gradually mix the coral with your choice of mayonnaise, remoulade, or English salad dressing.

Assemble and serve

Fill a bowl halfway with small salad herbs or finely shredded young lettuces.
Arrange slices of lobster flesh and thinly cut hard-boiled eggs spirally or in a chain on top of the herbs.
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).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster coral: Gives the dressing its rich flavour and orange colour.
Mayonnaise, remoulade, or english salad dressing: Provides the creamy fat base that carries the coral sauce.
Salad herbs or young lettuces: Forms the crisp, fresh bed that the lobster and eggs rest on.
Lobster flesh: Supplies the main sweet, firm protein of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Adds soft, creamy texture and mild richness to the salad.