Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: coral of 1 hen lobster; ½ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing; small salad herbs or young lettuces, finely shredded; flesh of 1 large lobster or 2 medium lobsters, sliced; 2 hard-boiled eggs, thinly sliced

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
½ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
small salad herbs or young lettuces, finely shredded
flesh of 1 large lobster or 2 medium lobsters, sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, thinly sliced

Directions

Make the coral sauce

Pound the coral of the lobster and rub it through a sieve.
Gradually mix the coral with the mayonnaise or salad dressing.

Assemble and serve

Half fill a bowl with the salad herbs or shredded lettuces.
Arrange the lobster slices and hard-boiled egg slices spirally or in a chain on top.
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 sauce its rich flavour and coral colour.
Mayonnaise or salad dressing: Provides the creamy base that carries the coral flavour and moistens the salad.
Salad herbs or young lettuces: Form the bed of crisp greens that supports the other ingredients.
Lobster flesh: Supplies the main seafood and its sweet, delicate flavour and texture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add soft, creamy texture and a mild richness to the salad.