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Salad

French Salad

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Thoroughly cleanse the watercress and lettuce, then shake them dry in a clean towel.

  2. Arrange the greens in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad 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. Watercress + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. 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

Watercress
Provides the leafy base and a peppery, slightly bitter flavor.
Lettuce
Adds crisp leaves that give the salad its bulk and crunch.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Oil
Carries flavor and coats the leaves, giving a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Dry the greens before dressing. Water on the leaves dilutes the dressing and stops it clinging, so the salad turns watery and bland. Thorough drying lets the oil and vinegar coat each leaf evenly.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, vinegar, pepper. 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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