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Salad

Wilted Lettuce

A lettuce salad with ham, vinegar, and cold boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wilted Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and carefully inspect the lettuce.

  2. Cut the ham into small pieces and fry until the fat is rendered.

  3. Once the fat is boiling, add the vinegar and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Pour the hot dressing over the lettuce.

  5. Garnish with cold boiled eggs cut into rings.

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. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Ham + lettucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Rendered fat from the ham forms the base of the warm dressing, adding savoury flavour.
Vinegar
Its acidity balances the rendered fat and gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Lettuce
Provides the crisp, fresh base that the hot dressing is poured over.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar to the boiling fat. Vinegar added to very hot fat can spatter violently, so it should be added carefully once the fat is boiling. Boiling it for only 1-2 minutes keeps the dressing warm and sharp without cooking the lettuce too much.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, egg. 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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