Why it works: Lobster and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 411 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Lobster Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the lobster into small pieces, but not too fine.
Wash the lettuce and press it in a towel to remove excess moisture.
Arrange the lettuce on a plate in bunches and slice it with a sharp knife.
Assemble and serve
Layer the lobster and lettuce in a salad dish, similar to chicken salad.
Grate the red coral over the top and arrange the claws and small lettuce leaves around the dish.
Chill the salad on ice until ready to serve.
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.
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Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together411 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 sweet, meaty texture of the salad.
- Lettuce
- Forms the bulk of the salad and adds crisp, fresh texture.
The step that matters
Pressing the lettuce dry. Excess water left on washed lettuce dilutes the salad and makes it soggy, so drying it well keeps the leaves crisp and the dressing-free layers from becoming wet.
“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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