Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: fresh lobster; 1-3 quantity of diced cucumbers; crisp celery; mayonnaise; lettuce leaves; whites of hard-boiled eggs

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

Boil the fresh lobster and remove the intestinal tract.
Use a silver fork to remove the meat from the shell in small pieces.

Assemble and serve

Mix the lobster meat with diced cucumbers and crisp celery.
When ready to serve, cover the mixture with mayonnaise.
Dress with lettuce leaves and arrange the whites of hard-boiled eggs cut into rounds on top.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,745 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together411 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lobster + cucumbertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lobster: Provides the main body of the salad, with sweet, tender meat as its base.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, binding the salad with fat and a creamy texture.
Diced cucumbers: Contribute crunch and moisture that contrast with the soft lobster meat.
Crisp celery: Adds a crisp texture and a fresh, slightly savoury note.
Whites of hard-boiled eggs: Add mild, firm texture and a light contrast to the rich mayonnaise.