Skip to main content

Butter Lettuce with Apples, Walnuts, and Pomegranate Seeds

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and pomegranate share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 35 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By epicurious. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lettuce + pomegranatetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together35 recipes

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

  2. Cider + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Mustard + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,356 recipes

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

  4. Pomegranate + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together71 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Broccoliabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, honey, mustard, pepper, butter, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).