Name: Lettuce Salad
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce; 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs; ½ cup rich cream (sweet or sour); 1 cup vinegar; 2 tablespoons sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pick and wash the lettuce, then place it in a salad dish.
Slice the hard-boiled eggs over the top of the lettuce.

Dress and serve

In a bowl, mix the cream, vinegar, sugar, and salt.
Pour the dressing over the salad.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 crisp base of the salad that holds the dressing and eggs.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Rich cream: Makes the dressing creamy and mellows the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy bite.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.