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Cooked Lettuce

A dish of boiled lettuce served with a milk sauce, macaroni, chestnuts, and Brussels sprouts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chestnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cooked Lettuce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Wash the lettuce heads in water with vinegar.

  2. Cut the stalks close to the leaves.

  3. Tie each head with tape or soft string.

  4. Place each head in a wide saucepan.

  5. Cover with boiling salted water.

  6. Cook slowly without a lid until tender.

  7. Carefully drain each head in a colander without bruising.

  8. Remove the strings.

  9. Place the lettuce in a hot dish.

  10. Pour a nice milk sauce over the lettuce.

Make the macaroni and sauce

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the macaroni.

  3. Cool the macaroni in cold water.

  4. Layer the macaroni in a dish.

  5. Season with salt and pepper between layers.

  6. Melt butter and flour in a saucepan.

  7. Gradually add milk while stirring to prevent lumps.

  8. Cook until boiling.

  9. Season the sauce.

  10. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Cook the chestnuts and sprouts

  1. Boil chestnuts in cold water for 25 minutes.

  2. Remove husks and skins from the chestnuts.

  3. Cook Brussels sprouts in a little water and butter in a tightly covered saucepan.

  4. Shake the Brussels sprouts occasionally.

  5. Combine the chestnuts and sprouts.

  6. Add a good piece of butter.

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 + chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender enough to hold its shape.
Milk
Forms the smooth sauce that coats and moistens the cooked lettuce.
Macaroni
Provides a starchy base layered in the dish, setting firm when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, enriching the sauce and the vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Chestnuts
Adds starchy body and a mild, sweet, nutty flavour to the side dish.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk while stirring. Adding milk slowly while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, vinegar, milk, butter, flour, pepper, chestnut):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, vinegar, milk, butter, flour, pepper, chestnut. 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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