Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: lobster meat from tails and claws; 1 tablespoon oil; 1 tablespoon vinegar; pepper to taste; salt to taste; lobster butter (for serving)

Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Break the shells and remove the lobster meat from the tails and claws.
In a basin, combine the lobster meat with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.
Reserve the pith and coral to make lobster butter.

Plate

Spread a circular foundation of lobster butter on the bottom of a dish, about 7 inches in diameter.

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.

Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat: Forms the main body of the salad and provides its savory flavor.
Oil: Adds moisture and richness, coating the lobster meat.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the lobster.
Lobster butter: Provides rich, concentrated lobster flavor and fat for the base of the dish.

“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.