Skip to main content
Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad of lettuce topped with lobster meat and a dressing of egg yolk, oil, mustard, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster and lettuce

  1. Remove the meat from the can of lobster in large pieces, keeping the coral separate.

  2. Cut the lettuce and place it on a dish.

  3. Top the lettuce with the lobster and arrange the coral around the edge.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks well.

  2. Slowly add the salad oil while beating vigorously.

  3. Mix in the mustard, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the lobster salad just before serving.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Salad oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the dressing when beaten into the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mixed mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds sharp flavor to the dressing.
Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the salad.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base that holds the lobster and dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly add the salad oil while beating vigorously. Oil must be added gradually while beating so it disperses into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk's lecithin. Adding it too fast can cause the emulsion to break, leaving a greasy, separated dressing.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, mustard, 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

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes