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
Cut the lobster into pieces and season it like chicken.
Remove the leaves from the head of lettuce and wash them carefully.
Soak the lettuce leaves in ice water for about 5 minutes, then shake off excess water.
Chill the lettuce in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Assemble
Arrange 2-3 leaves in the shape of a shell on a flat dish.
Mix half of the mayonnaise with the lobster and place a tablespoon of this mixture on the lettuce leaves.
Top each spoonful of lobster with a teaspoon of the remaining mayonnaise.
If desired, mix pounded lobster coral with mayonnaise for a bright red color.
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 meaty texture and mild sweet flavor of the salad.
- Mayonnaise
- Adds fat and moisture, binding the lobster and giving the salad its creamy richness.
- Lettuce
- Provides crisp texture and a cool, fresh base that holds the lobster.
The step that matters
Shaking off excess water from the lettuce. Water left on the lettuce leaves dilutes the mayonnaise and makes the shell soggy, so the leaves should be dried well before assembling.
“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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