Name: Lettuce
Ingredients: 5-6 leaves of early lettuce; hard-boiled eggs; vinegar; oil; made mustard; salad dressing; small red radishes

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Break the leaves apart from the stalk and rinse them in cold water.

Assemble

Layer the largest leaves in a salad bowl, followed by medium-sized leaves, and finish with the finest white leaves.
Slice the hard-boiled eggs and arrange them around the edge of the salad.
Garnish with halved or sliced radishes and additional hard-boiled eggs if desired.

Serve

Serve with vinegar, oil, and made mustard on the side.
Alternatively, cut the washed lettuce leaves small, place in a glass dish, and pour salad dressing over before serving.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce leaves: Form the crisp, fresh body of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add firm, mild protein and a creamy texture against the leaves.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that balances the oil and cuts the richness.
Oil: Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing body.
Made mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.