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Lobster Salad

A chilled salad of lobster, hard‑boiled eggs, and a vinaigrette of vinegar, sugar, oil, mustard, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the whites of the hard-boiled eggs, lobster, and lettuce into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine vinegar, sugar, salad oil, pepper, mustard, and salt.

  3. Heat the mixture until scalding hot.

  4. Rub the yolks of the eggs into a fine paste and stir into the hot mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine with the chopped lobster and egg whites.

  2. Serve chilled.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lobster + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the dressing, while the whites add body to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Salad oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the oil into the dressing and adds a sharp, aromatic bite.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolk paste into the hot mixture. The heat from the dressing gently cooks and thickens the yolk. Stir steadily as you add it so the yolk blends smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, vinegar, sugar, 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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