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Salad

Lettuce and Cress Salad

A simple salad of lettuce and cress dressed with vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 and Cress Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Wash and cut up the lettuce and cress.

  2. Pile them in a salad bowl.

Make and dress

  1. In a separate bowl, mix vinegar, salt, sugar, and mustard. Gradually add salad oil while mixing well.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss with a fork.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy bulk of the salad.
Cress
Adds a peppery, fresh flavour and crisp texture to the greens.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the oil.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing body.
Mustard
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp, pungent note.

The step that matters

Gradually add the salad oil while mixing. Adding oil slowly while whisking breaks it into small droplets held in the vinegar, so the dressing stays emulsified and cohesive rather than separating into greasy layers.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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