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Salad

Salad, Mayonnaise

A lettuce salad dressed with mayonnaise, topped with hard‑boiled eggs, pickled gherkins, olives, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salad, Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the lettuces.

  2. Take the small heart of one lettuce, uncut from the stalk, and stand it upright in the middle of the salad.

  3. Arrange the softer parts of the leaves on top to create a smooth surface.

Dress and decorate

  1. Make a thick mayonnaise sauce and spread it over the mound and the surface of the salad.

  2. Decorate the edge with quartered hard-boiled eggs, slices of pickled gherkins, and stoned olives.

  3. Sprinkle dried French capers about an inch apart on the white surface.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

French lettuces
Provide the crisp leaves that form the body and structure of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty coating that holds the salad together.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy texture and mild savoriness as a decorative edge.
Pickled gherkins
Contribute acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Stoned olives
Add briny, savory flavor and contrast in color and texture.
French capers
Add a sharp, briny accent that brightens the rich mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Make a thick mayonnaise sauce. Mayonnaise that is too thin will run off the mound and pool at the base instead of coating the lettuce smoothly. A thick emulsion holds its shape and clings to the leaves, so the salad keeps its form when served.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, egg, olive, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, olive, capers. 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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