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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster meat dressed with French dressing, mayonnaise, mustard, salt, cayenne, egg yolk, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Remove meat from the lobster and cut it into pieces.

  2. Marinate the lobster pieces with French dressing.

Make the mayonnaise dressing

  1. To make the mayonnaise dressing, mix mustard, salt, and cayenne in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolk and gradually whisk in the olive oil and vinegar until smooth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Just before serving, add mayonnaise to the lobster mixture.

  2. Serve in the lobster shell on a bed of lettuce and garnish with additional mayonnaise.

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 + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main meat and flavour of the salad.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, giving the mayonnaise its thick, smooth body.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase of the mayonnaise, adding richness and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury note.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the egg yolk. Oil must be whisked in slowly so it disperses into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk's lecithin. Adding it too fast makes the mayonnaise break and separate into a greasy liquid.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, mustard, egg, olive, vinegar. 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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