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Stuffed Lettuce

A lettuce head filled with savory mince and egg, braised in soup, vegetables, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,301 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Stuffed Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Wash the lettuce and trim the outer leaves.

  2. Tie the lettuce with tape and blanch in boiling water for a few minutes.

  3. Allow the lettuce to drain and cool.

Stuff and braise

  1. Split the lettuce down one side and carefully remove a small portion of the heart.

  2. Stuff the lettuce with savory mince bound with an egg.

  3. Bring the severed edges of the leaves together and tie them up again.

  4. Braise gently with soup, vegetables, and good stock for one hour.

  5. Serve with the thickened stock poured over the stuffed lettuce.

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. Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the wrapping leaves that hold the filling and becomes tender when braised.
Savory mince
Provides the savory filling that the lettuce leaves enclose during braising.
Egg
Binds the mince so the filling holds together when stuffed and braised.
Good stock
Braising liquid that adds moisture and flavor, later thickened into the serving sauce.

The step that matters

Tying the lettuce after stuffing. If the leaves are not brought together and tied firmly, the filling can escape during braising. Lettuce softens as it cooks, so the tie must hold the shape throughout.

“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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