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Salad

French Dressing for Lettuce

A simple vinaigrette made with salad oil, vinegar, and salt for lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Dressing for Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and wash the lettuce, then place it in a salad bowl.

  2. Pour the salad oil over the lettuce.

Dress and serve

  1. Dissolve the salt in the vinegar.

  2. Slowly pour the vinegar mixture over the lettuce.

  3. Stir thoroughly and 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. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 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 bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, leafy texture.
Salad oil
Coats the leaves and carries flavour, giving the dressing its richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, bright taste.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Salt and acid draw water out of lettuce leaves, so the greens wilt and lose their crispness if the dressed salad waits.

“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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