IllustrationWhy it works: Milk and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 410 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Render and brown
In a cast iron skillet fry 2 lb. of bacon to render fat, but not crisp the bacon.
Remove bacon from skillet leaving the fat in the pan.
Allow the fat to brown slightly.
For every 2 tablespoons of browned fat rendered add 2 tablespoons of flour.
Stirring constantly, brown the flour in the fat to a deep golden brown.
Allow to cool slightly so as not to curdle the milk when added.
Make the soup
Once cooled, add 1 cup of milk for every 2 tablespoons of flour used.
Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.
Add torn up lettuce and cut up bacon to the browned fat and flour mixture.
Bring back to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.
Add eggs to the mixture, making sure to stir it throughout the soup.
Reduce heat to low and continue to cook for about 1 hour, until the lettuce is cooked down.
Salt to taste.
Serve with a crusty French bread.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
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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.
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Milk + lettucetop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together410 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Flour + milktop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together76,993 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lettucetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,205 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together104,138 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,465 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk share little aroma chemistry, yet 76,993 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon
- Rendered fat provides the cooking base, and crisped pieces add savory flavor to the soup.
- Flour
- Browned in the bacon fat to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds nutty flavor.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid that the roux thickens into a smooth soup.
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs are stirred in to enrich the soup and add body as it cooks.
- Leaf lettuce
- Cooks down during simmering to become tender and give the soup its main vegetable flavor.
The step that matters
Browning the flour in the fat. Stirring constantly and taking the flour to a deep golden brown builds a roux with nutty flavor and good thickening. Scorching gives a bitter taste and dark specks, so the flour needs close attention.
“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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