Name: Lobster Salad
Ingredients: lobster meat; oil; vinegar; pepper; coarse sea salt; lobster-butter; shredded lettuce

Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Break the shells and remove the lobster meat from the claws and tails.
In a bowl, combine the lobster meat with a little oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.
Reserve the pith and coral to make lobster-butter.
Spread a circular layer of lobster-butter in the bottom of a dish, about 7 inches in diameter and ¼ inch thick.
Scoop out the center, leaving a circular band.
Drain the lobster on a cloth and cut it into oval scallops.
Use some lobster-butter to stick the pieces together and pile the salad in three rows, leaving the center hollow.
Fill the hollow with shredded lettuce seasoned with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.
Pour scarlet remoulade or mayonnaise sauce over the salad without covering the lobster pieces.

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.

Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the lettuce

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Lettucethe original

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