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Lobster Salad

A salad of lobster meat served on lettuce, watercress, cucumber, with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 the lobster

  1. Open the lobster and remove the meat, keeping the claws whole.

Assemble the dish

  1. Make a border around a dish with the best leaves of lettuce and watercress, adding small bunches of sliced cucumber.

  2. Shred the remaining cucumber and place it in the center of the dish.

  3. Arrange the lobster prettily, leaving the claws whole, and garnish with the ends of the claws, egg white, and lobster coral.

  4. Pour the mayonnaise over the center.

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 + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Watercress + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lobster + watercresstop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, coating the salad and giving it moisture and richness.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp leafy base and border that holds the dish together.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and a light, fresh moisture to the salad.

The step that matters

Remove the meat and keep the claws whole. Cutting carelessly through the shell and claws can tear the delicate meat and break the claws, spoiling the presentation. Careful opening keeps the flesh intact and in large pieces that look neat and eat well.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, lettuce, watercress. 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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