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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of lobster, cos lettuce, egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegars, anchovy essence, beetroot, hard‑boiled eggs, and Spanish onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the lobsters as whole as possible.

  2. Chop the cos lettuces and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks and soften with water.

  2. Add mustard to the egg mixture and mix well.

  3. Slowly incorporate salad oil until well combined.

  4. Stir in vinegar, tarragon vinegar, essence of anchovy, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice the lobster thinly and mix with the salad.

  2. Serve the salad in a pyramid shape and drizzle with the sauce.

  3. Garnish with beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, and Spanish onions.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and mustard to give the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsified dressing, adding richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays blended into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Lobsters
Provide the main meat, adding sweet flavour and tender texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Slowly incorporate salad oil until well combined. Adding oil too quickly to mashed yolks can cause the emulsion to break, leaving a greasy, separated dressing. Adding it slowly while mixing lets tiny oil droplets disperse evenly in the yolk mixture.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Lettucethe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, mustard, vinegar, tarragon, anchovy, 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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