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Lettuce Salad

A simple salad of lettuce dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the lettuce carefully.

Dress the lettuce

  1. In a bowl, combine salt and white pepper.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of oil and pour it over the lettuce.

  3. Toss the lettuce until it shines.

  4. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil and toss again.

  5. Finally, add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and mix lightly.

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).

  2. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lettuce + white peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 that the oil and vinegar coat.
Oil
Coats the leaves, adding richness and a glossy sheen.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar last and mixing lightly. Vinegar is acidic and added at the end, so it sits on the oiled leaves without soaking in. Vigorous tossing at this point can bruise and wilt the lettuce, so a light hand keeps the leaves crisp.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, vinegar. 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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