Name: Endive Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups crisp lettuce, chopped; 2 cups endive, chopped; 1 piece Roquefort cheese (about 1 ounce); 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 cup French dressing; 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

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 ↓

Endive Salad

Ingredients

2 cups crisp lettuce, chopped
2 cups endive, chopped
1 piece Roquefort cheese (about 1 ounce)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup French dressing
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mash the Roquefort cheese until smooth.
Mix in the olive oil until well combined.
Stir in the French dressing and Worcestershire sauce.

Toss and chill

Toss the lettuce and endive with the dressing.
Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

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.

Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Endive + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together209 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Roquefort cheese + olivetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Lettuce + roquefort cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28 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

Roquefort cheese: Adds a sharp, salty flavour and a creamy body to the dressing once mashed smooth.
Olive oil: Emulsifies with the cheese and dressing, adding richness and helping the dressing coat the leaves.
Endive: Provides a crisp, slightly bitter base that contrasts with the rich dressing.
Crisp lettuce: Adds crunch and volume, and holds the dressing on its leaves.

Swap the endive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, roquefort cheese, olive, sauce):

Endivethe original
Mustardfits about as well
Tomatofits less well
Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, roquefort cheese, olive, sauce. 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.