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Salad

The True Lettuce Salad

A salad of fresh lettuce and endive seasoned with coarse sea salt, black pepper, 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 endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The True Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce and endive thoroughly without handling them, then remove excess water.

  2. In a large salad bowl, cross-cut the lettuce and endive a few times.

Dress and serve

  1. Add ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and ⅛ teaspoon of black pepper.

  2. Drizzle with oil and vinegar to taste.

  3. Mix immediately before serving and keep cool until ready to eat.

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Endive + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 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

Fresh lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
Fresh endive
Adds crunch and a slightly bitter note that contrasts the dressing.
Oil
Coats the leaves, adding richness and carrying flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the leaves and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Mix immediately before serving. Salt and acid draw water out of delicate leaves, so they wilt and turn limp if dressed too early. Dressing just before serving keeps them crisp.

Swap the endive

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Endivethe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pepper, 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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