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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A salad of chopped lettuce, egg yolks, and a mustard‑vinegar butter dressing, garnished with egg white rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped lettuce and rubbed egg yolks, then season with salt, pepper, and mustard.

  2. In a saucepan, heat vinegar and butter together.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the lettuce and egg yolks, mix well, and garnish with the egg whites cut in rings.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, fresh texture.
Egg yolks
Rubbed fine, they bind into the dressing and give it a creamy, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Melts into the hot vinegar, adding fat for a smooth, mellow dressing.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps emulsify the dressing with the yolks.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot vinegar mixture over the lettuce. The hot vinegar and butter must be poured over the lettuce and yolks while still hot, so the lettuce softens slightly and the dressing coats evenly. Mixing well right after pouring spreads the warm dressing through the yolks so they don't clump.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar, butter):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar, butter. 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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