Name: Salad of Lettuce and Veal
Ingredients: ½ pound cold veal; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 head of lettuce; 2 boiled eggs; 4 tablespoons oil; 3 teaspoons best vinegar; ½ teaspoon celery essence

Why it works: Lettuce and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Salad of Lettuce and Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cold veal into inch-long strips and season with salt and pepper.
Shred the lettuce and chop the boiled eggs, not too finely.
Mix the lettuce and eggs together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

In a separate bowl, beat the yolks of two eggs and season lightly with salt.
Gradually beat in the oil, a few drops at a time, until thick.
Then gradually add the vinegar and celery essence, mixing until creamy.

Assemble

Pour the dressing over the meat and lettuce, toss with a fork, and transfer to a glass dish.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 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

Veal: Provides the main protein and substance, with its strips adding chew to the salad.
Lettuce: Forms the crisp, leafy base that gives the salad its fresh bulk.
Boiled eggs: Add soft, creamy texture and body to the salad.
Egg yolks: Act as the emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together as a thick, creamy dressing.
Oil: Supplies fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the dressing its richness and body.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the yolks. Oil must be added slowly, a few drops at a time, so the yolk lecithin can emulsify it. Adding it too fast breaks the dressing into a greasy, separated liquid instead of a thick, creamy emulsion.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, egg, vinegar, celery):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Mustardfits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, egg, vinegar, celery. 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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Salad of Lettuce and Veal