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Suffolk Salad

A salad of shredded lettuce, minced ham, eggs, and optional chicken, dressed with English salad sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Suffolk Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fill a salad bowl half to three-quarters full with shredded lettuces.

  2. Layer in minced ham and minced hard-boiled eggs or yolks alternately.

  3. Dress the mixture with English salad sauce just before serving.

  4. If desired, add thin slices of cold chicken.

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. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Very tender lettuces
Forms the crisp, airy bulk that the other layers rest on.
Minced lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firm, chewy texture between the layers.
Hard-boiled eggs or egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture that contrasts with the lettuce.
English salad sauce
Adds moisture and flavour that coats the layered ingredients.

The step that matters

Dress the salad just before serving. Salt and acid in a dressing draw water out of delicate lettuce leaves through osmosis, so they wilt and lose crispness if left standing with the sauce.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, sauce, chicken):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, sauce, chicken. 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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