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To Dress Lobster Cold

A dressing made from cold water, lobster meat, salt, cayenne, oil, mustard, vinegar, and optional sugar, garnished with claws and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Dress Lobster Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. On a clean plate, combine cold water and the coral or scarlet meat of the lobster, mashing with the back of a wooden spoon.

  2. Add coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper, mixing well.

  3. In another area of the plate, mix sweet oil and prepared mustard until smooth.

  4. Combine the two mixtures until well incorporated, then add vinegar and mix again.

Add the lobster and serve

  1. Carefully extract and mince the meat from the body and claws of the lobster.

  2. Mix the minced lobster meat with the dressing until evenly coated.

  3. Transfer to a deep dish, smooth the top, and garnish with small claws and curled parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Coral or scarlet lobster meat
Provides the rich, distinctive flavour and colour that defines the dressing.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour and giving the dressing body.
Prepared mustard
Helps the oil and liquids emulsify, keeping the dressing smooth and cohesive.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of oil and lobster.
Lobster meat from body and claws
Supplies the main body of meat, giving the dressing its texture and substance.

The step that matters

Combine the two mixtures until well incorporated. The oil and mustard must be fully blended into the liquid base; mustard helps hold oil and water together as an emulsion, so under-mixing can leave the dressing greasy and separated.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sugar, lobster. 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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