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Make the Mayonnaise Dressing

Lobster served on crisp lettuce with a mayonnaise dressing flavored with vinegar, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Make the Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Whip the yolks of 5 eggs until thick.

  2. Add ½ cup of salad oil drop by drop until smooth.

  3. Gradually beat in 2 tablespoons of vinegar, a pinch of cayenne, and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  4. Keep the mixing bowl on ice while preparing the dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Sprinkle the lobster with salt, pepper, and vinegar just before serving.

  2. Heap the lobster in a bowl lined with crisp lettuce leaves.

  3. Beat whipped cream into the dressing and cover the lobster thickly with it.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lobster + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, smooth dressing.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its rich body and smoothness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing and balances the fat.
Lobster
Main protein, seasoned lightly so it is flavourful under the dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds softness and moisture.

The step that matters

Add the oil drop by drop. Oil added too quickly to the yolks cannot be absorbed into the emulsion, so the dressing breaks and turns greasy and separated instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper, lobster, cream. 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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