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Lettuce Puree

A creamy puree made from boiled lettuce, stock, onions, carrots, and bacon, finished with flour‑butter paste and seasoned with pepper, salt, and Bovril.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and strain

  1. Combine lettuce, stock, onions, carrots, and bacon in a pot.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix flour and butter to form a paste.

  2. Add the paste to the strained mixture and stir well.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then stir in Bovril.

  4. Serve hot with small croutons of bread.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the puree and gives its fresh, green flavor as it softens.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that cooks the vegetables and carries their flavor into the puree.
Flour and butter
Form a paste that thickens the strained liquid into a smoother, heavier body.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the soup as it cooks.
Onions
Add aroma and a mild sweetness as they soften during the boil.
Bovril
Adds concentrated savory depth to finish the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter paste. Stir the paste in well so it disperses evenly. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed, and the starch only thickens fully once the liquid is hot enough to swell it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, carrot, flour, butter, pepper, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, carrot, flour, butter, pepper, bread. 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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