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Salad

Assorted Salad

A salad of lettuce, cucumber, radish, green onion, parsley, and chipped beef, chilled with salt and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Assorted Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce carefully to avoid breaking the leaves.

  2. Peel and slice the cucumbers thinly.

  3. Place the cucumbers in a bowl with salt and a few lumps of ice for 1 hour.

  4. Peel and slice the large radishes.

  5. Leave the radishes in ice water until ready to use.

  6. Chop the green onion and parsley finely.

  7. Cut the chipped beef into small strips.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the ingredients nicely on a lettuce leaf.

  2. Serve with dressing.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  5. Radish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together120 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White lettuce
Forms the leaf base that holds the other ingredients and gives crisp texture.
Cucumbers
Add crisp, cooling moisture and a fresh texture to the salad.
Radishes
Add a sharp, peppery bite and crunch to the salad.
Chipped beef
Adds salty, savory flavor and chewy texture against the crisp vegetables.

The step that matters

Salting and chilling the cucumbers. Salt draws water out of the cucumber slices by osmosis, so they soften slightly and lose excess liquid. Chilling in ice keeps them crisp. Leaving them too long or without ice can make the salad limp and watery.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, cucumber, radish, onion, beef):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, radish, onion, beef. 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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