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Salad

Lettuce, Cucumber, Brocoli

A simple salad of lettuce, cucumber, and broccoli dressed with olive oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce, Cucumber, Brocoli

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Wash and chop the lettuce into bite-sized pieces.

  2. Slice the cucumber thinly.

  3. Blanch the broccoli florets in boiling water for 2 minutes, then cool in ice water.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the lettuce, cucumber, and broccoli.

  2. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar, then season with salt.

  3. Toss gently to combine and 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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + broccolitop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Cucumber + broccolitop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together432 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds moisture and a cool, crisp texture.
Broccoli florets
Add crunch and a slightly tender bite after brief blanching.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and coats the leaves.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing.

The step that matters

Blanch the broccoli florets. Two minutes in boiling water softens the florets slightly while keeping them bright green; the ice water bath stops the cooking so they stay crisp rather than turning soft and dull.

Swap the broccoli

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, cucumber, olive, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Broccolithe original
  4. Radishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, olive, vinegar. 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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