Name: Salad, Winter
Ingredients: 2 heads of lettuce; ½ head of endive; 1 small boiled beetroot; a small amount of mustard and cress; mayonnaise or plain dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Salad, Winter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the lettuce thoroughly and remove the outer leaves.
Tear the lettuce into small pieces.
Tear the endive into small pieces.
Peel and slice the boiled beetroot.
Wash the mustard and cress, cutting off the stalks.

Assemble

Mix all the salad ingredients together.
Dress with mayonnaise or plain dressing.

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.

Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Endive + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Endive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 crisp, watery texture.
Endive: Adds a slightly bitter note and crisp leaves that contrast with the lettuce.
Boiled beetroot: Adds sweetness, earthy flavour and colour to the salad.
Mayonnaise or plain dressing: Adds moisture and fat that coat the leaves and carry flavour.