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Shrimp and Lobster Sandwich

A sandwich filled with a shrimp or lobster salad mixed with celery, vinegar, mayonnaise, and seasonings, served on buttered bread with lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Shrimp and Lobster Sandwich

makes thirty-six sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped shrimp or lobster, chopped celery, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix in the mayonnaise until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Butter the bread and place a leaf of lettuce on each slice.

  2. Spread the shrimp and lobster mixture on the lettuce.

  3. Cut into sandwiches; this recipe makes thirty-six sandwiches.

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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp or lobster
Provides the main seafood flavor and the chunky, tender body of the filling.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft filling.
Mayonnaise
Binds the filling together and adds richness and moisture.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the seafood and cuts the richness of the mayonnaise.
Bread
Provides the structure that holds the filling; buttering it adds fat and helps keep it from soaking through.

The step that matters

Mix in the mayonnaise until well combined. Mayonnaise should be folded in gently so the filling stays creamy without turning watery or mushy. Overmixing can break the emulsion and crush the tender seafood, while uneven mixing leaves pockets of plain, greasy or dry filling.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, celery, vinegar, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, celery, vinegar, pepper, bread. 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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