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Salad

Lobster Salad

A salad of lettuce and lobster topped with an egg and mustard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lobster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce, drain well, and shred it into small pieces.

  2. Cut or chop the lobster into small pieces.

  3. Mix the lobster pieces with the lettuce.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat together the yolk of the hard boiled egg, the raw egg, mustard, pepper, melted butter, sugar, lemon juice, and vinegar.

  2. Pour the dressing over the lobster and lettuce mixture, then toss to combine.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main protein and sweet, meaty bulk of the salad.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base that holds the dressing and lobster.
Raw egg
Emulsifies with the butter and lemon to give the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Hard boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dressing smoothly.
Melted butter
Adds fat and silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing.

The step that matters

Beating the dressing. The raw egg, melted butter, and acid must be beaten together gradually so they emulsify. If the butter is added too fast or is too hot, the dressing can split and look oily rather than creamy.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, egg, mustard, pepper, butter, sugar, lemon):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, egg, mustard, pepper, butter, sugar, lemon. 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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