Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: 1 tinned lobster; Lettuce, watercress, or cucumber salad; Eggs for garnishing; Dressing of choice

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

1 tinned lobster
Lettuce, watercress, or cucumber salad
Eggs for garnishing
Dressing of choice

Directions

Divide the tinned lobster and mix it with your preferred dressing.
Place the lobster in a dish and surround it with lettuce, watercress, or cucumber salad.
If there are nice claws, use them to garnish the outside of the salad with sliced eggs.
Alternatively, mix the lobster and salad or layer them in a bowl with dressing.
Garnish with sliced cucumber and eggs.

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.

Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,484 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Tinned lobster: Provides the main protein and the central flavour of the salad.
Dressing of choice: Adds moisture and acidity that coats the lobster and greens.
Lettuce, watercress, or cucumber salad: Forms the crisp, fresh base that contrasts with the lobster.