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Salad

Salad, Summer

A fresh salad of lettuce, mustard, cress, radishes, cucumber, and optional garnishes, dressed with chosen salad dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Salad, Summer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the herbs in water for 1-2 hours if they are stale to refresh them. Thoroughly dry the herbs using a clean cloth.

  2. Cut the lettuces into small pieces and slice the radishes and cucumbers thinly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange all ingredients lightly on a dish with the mustard and cress.

  2. Pour the salad dressing under the salad, but do not stir until ready to eat.

  3. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs, sliced cucumbers, nasturtiums, or vegetable flowers if desired.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
Radishes
Add a peppery bite and crisp texture.
Mustard and cress
Adds a sharp, peppery flavour and fresh aroma.
Cucumber
Contributes cool moisture and a crisp, refreshing texture.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing under the salad and do not stir until serving. Dressing added on top of greens and left unstirred keeps the leaves from wilting and going limp too early. Stirring before serving breaks the leaves and softens the crisp texture.

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, mustard, radish, egg):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, mustard, radish, egg. 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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