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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of sliced lobster, cos lettuce, and a mustard‑anchovy vinaigrette, garnished with beetroot, eggs, onions, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 the lobster and lettuce

  1. Remove the meat from the lobsters and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Chop the cos lettuces and place them in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks with water until smooth. Add mustard to the egg mixture and mix well.

  2. Gradually add salad oil, mixing until well combined.

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

Assemble and garnish

  1. Combine the lobster meat with the lettuce and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Garnish with beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, and Spanish onions, arranging in a pyramid shape.

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

Lobsters
Provide the main meat, whose thin slices give the salad its substance and flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into a smooth base that emulsifies the oil and thickens the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, and emulsifies with the egg yolk to form a creamy dressing.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury bite to the dressing.
Cos lettuces
Form the crisp, cool base that holds the lobster and dressing.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the egg yolk mixture. Oil must be added gradually while mixing so it disperses into the yolk as a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the dressing to split and turn oily and thin.

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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