Name: Cheese Salad
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 hard-cooked egg yolk; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 pound cheese, grated; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; 2 tablespoons vinegar; Lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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 ↓

Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

Combine olive oil and egg yolk in a saucepan, then beat together with a spoon.
Add salt and pepper and mix well.

Finish and serve

Stir in grated cheese and mustard.
Add vinegar and mix until combined.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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.

Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk: Emulsifies the olive oil so the dressing holds together smoothly.
Cheese: Provides the main body, flavor and bulk of the salad.
Olive oil: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the cheese and oil.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

Swap the lettuce

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Lettucethe original
Broccolifits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, egg, pepper, cheese, mustard, 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.