Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster meat, hard‑boiled eggs, mayonnaise, lettuce, beet, cucumber, vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster and eggs

  1. Remove the meat from the body of the lobster.

  2. Cut the tail into ¼‑inch thick slices.

  3. Chop the whites of the hard‑boiled eggs.

  4. Rub the yolks through a fine sieve.

  5. Mix the soft parts of the lobster with the mayonnaise.

Layer and serve

  1. In a bowl, layer shredded lettuce, lobster slices, quartered hard‑boiled eggs, sliced beet, and cucumber.

  2. Repeat the layers.

  3. Sprinkle the egg and lobster coral over each layer.

  4. Reserve some egg yolks and whites for decoration.

  5. Arrange them with the coral and lobster on top.

  6. Before serving, pour mayonnaise over the top.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meaty texture and sweet flavour of the salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and moisture, binding the lobster and coating the layers.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy yolk richness and firm white texture to the layers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich mayonnaise and eggs.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, egg, cucumber, vinegar, 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.

More lobster salad recipes

Dressing 7Cold 3 See all 290 →

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes