Skip to main content
Main

Dutch Lettuce

A salad of lettuce, boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, onions, butter, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Wash the lettuce and cut it finely.

  2. Drain all the water off.

  3. Place the lettuce in a dish.

Add the toppings

  1. Add sliced onions and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and sugar.

  3. Mash the hot potatoes and place them on top.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. Heat the vinegar until warm.

  2. Melt the butter in the warm vinegar.

  3. Alternatively, fry 3 or 4 slices of bacon and use the grease instead.

  4. Pour the hot mixture over the lettuce.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the salad and wilts slightly under the hot dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the warm dressing.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and mild richness to the salad.
Potatoes
Add starchy body and absorb some of the warm dressing.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the lettuce. The dressing must be hot enough to slightly wilt the lettuce and to melt the butter fully into the vinegar. If it cools, the lettuce stays crisp and the dressing separates, so pour it immediately after mixing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, onion, sugar, potato, butter, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, sugar, potato, butter, vinegar. 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.

More dutch lettuce recipes

Salad 3 See all 2 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes