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Bacon Salad

A salad of lettuce and bacon with a dressing of egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, and bacon fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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 ↓

Bacon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the bacon and dressing

  1. Cut the bacon into small squares and fry until golden brown.

  2. Remove the bacon bits and drain on soft paper.

  3. In a saucepan, heat the bacon fat and vinegar.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, pepper, and mustard, then cook over hot water until slightly thickened.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then cut the lettuce into ribbons.

Assemble and serve

  1. Toss the lettuce and bacon together, and mix with the dressing.

  2. Add a pinch of salt if desired.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Provides savory flavor and crisp bits, with its fat carrying flavor into the dressing.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and carries flavor into the warm dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the fat.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm dressing as they gently set over hot water, giving it body.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base that the warm dressing wilts slightly and coats.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture over hot water. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they can scramble into lumps. Gentle heat over hot water and stirring keep the dressing smooth and slightly thickened.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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