Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lettuce Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the leaves
Discard bruised and outer leaves of the lettuce, keeping the inner leaves.
If necessary, wipe the inner leaves with a clean cloth; do not soak them in water.
Drain the leaves on a sieve and dry them in a cloth.
Tear the leaves into pieces about 1.5 inches long and place them in a salad bowl.
Dress the salad
In a wooden spoon, combine ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and ¼ teaspoon of finely ground white pepper.
Fill the spoon with olive oil and stir well with a fork, then sprinkle over the salad.
Add 2 more spoonfuls of olive oil and a little less than 1 spoonful of French vinegar.
Toss the salad gently with a wooden spoon to mix the dressing.
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.
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Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,297 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,370 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,154 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lettuce + white peppertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 body of the salad.
- Olive oil
- Carries flavour and coats the leaves, giving them a smooth, glossy texture.
- French vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the oil and balances the dressing.
The step that matters
Keep the leaves dry before dressing. Water on the leaves dilutes the oil and vinegar, so the dressing slides off and pools at the bottom instead of clinging to the leaves.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, olive, vinegar):
- Tarragonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Garlicfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, olive, 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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