Name: Lettuce Salad
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce; 4 hard boiled eggs; ¼ cup vinegar; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 teaspoons French mustard

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash each leaf of lettuce carefully, using only the nice crisp ones.

Make the dressing

Make a dressing by mixing vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and French mustard.

Assemble and serve

Serve in a salad bowl with 4 sliced hard boiled eggs on top.
Drizzle the dressing over the salad before serving.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

Lettuce: Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad and provides its main texture.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and substance, with firm whites and creamy yolks.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sugar.
French mustard: Adds sharpness and helps the dressing hold together as a smooth emulsion.
Sugar: Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard for a balanced flavour.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, pepper, sugar, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper, sugar, mustard. 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.