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Stewed Lettuces

A dish of sautéed lettuce cooked with butter, flour, broth, and vinegar, served hot with fried bread sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Lettuces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer leaves and stalks from the lettuce, then wash thoroughly.

  2. Soak the lettuce in salted water until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and press out excess water, then chop the lettuce slightly.

Cook and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, heat the chopped lettuce with butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and stir well.

  3. Add the broth or gravy and boil until the mixture is fairly dry.

  4. Stir in the vinegar or lemon juice and serve hot with fried sippets around.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 dish and, once softened and dried, gives it a tender, stewed texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the lettuce as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stewed lettuce holds together rather than running loose.
Broth or gravy
Supplies savoury liquid that cooks into the lettuce and seasons the stew.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the richness of the butter and broth.

The step that matters

Boil until fairly dry. Reducing the liquid after adding broth or gravy concentrates flavour and sets the flour-thickened mixture. Stopping too early leaves it soupy, while over-boiling can scorch the butter and flour on the pan.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, vinegar, 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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