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Lobster Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the lobster with water, salt, pepper, vinegar, parsley, chives, thyme, and bay leaf for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the lobster cool in the cooking liquid, then drain.

  3. Slice the lobster and serve on a napkin with claws split lengthwise.

  4. Prepare the salad with slices of eggs, capers, and fillets of anchovies.

  5. Drizzle oil, vinegar, and pepper over the salad before serving.

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. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, pepper, vinegar, parsley, chive, egg, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, pepper, vinegar, parsley, chive, egg, capers. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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