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Salad

Lettuce Dressing

A simple dressing made with salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil for lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Lettuce Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a large tablespoon, mix salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the spoon heaping with vinegar and stir quickly.

Dress the lettuce

  1. Pour the vinegar slowly over the lettuce.

  2. Drizzle olive oil over the lettuce.

  3. Toss the lettuce with a fork and spoon until well coated.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Break the lettuce instead of cutting it.

  2. After washing, place the lettuce near ice to keep it crisp.

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 + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, bright flavor.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that coats the lettuce leaves.
Salt
Seasons the dressing and brings out the flavor of the vinegar and lettuce.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar slowly over the lettuce. Pouring slowly spreads the acid evenly across the leaves, so no area is sharply sour and the dressing coats rather than pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

“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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