Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: 1 fresh lobster or 1 tin of lobster; 2 heads of lettuce; 1 bunch of watercress; 1 cucumber; ½ pound tomatoes; 1 teaspoon mustard; Salt and pepper to taste; 2 hard-boiled eggs

Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Form a border with the small leaves of the lettuce and place a little watercress between them.
Slice the tomatoes, eggs, and cucumber.
Shred the remaining lettuce and watercress.

Assemble and serve

Arrange the sliced ingredients in alternate layers in the center of the dish.
Garnish with lobster claws, a few slices of tomatoes, and egg.
Serve with cream dressing.

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.

Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Watercress + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together293 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Watercress + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together140 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster: Provides the main protein and the rich, sweet flavour at the centre of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add creamy richness and a soft texture that contrasts with the crisp greens.
Lettuce: Forms the crisp base and border that gives the salad its structure and fresh bite.
Tomatoes: Add juiciness and a light acidity that balances the richness of the lobster and eggs.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, lettuce, watercress, cucumber, mustard, pepper, egg):

Horseradishfits better
Beetrootfits better
Chivefits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, watercress, cucumber, mustard, pepper, egg. 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.