Skip to main content
Salad

Dutch Lettuce

A salad of crisp lettuce and onion tossed with bacon drippings, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy and reserve the drippings.

  2. Add vinegar to the drippings in the pan.

  3. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.

Assemble the salad

  1. Pour the warm sauce over the chopped lettuce and onion mixture.

  2. Toss gently to combine.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + lettucetop 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 + lettucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Its drippings supply fat and smoky flavor that carry the warm dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.
Lettuce
Provides the crisp, leafy base that the warm dressing wilts slightly.
Onion
Adds a sharp, pungent bite to the salad.

The step that matters

Pour the warm sauce over the lettuce and onion. The dressing must be warm but not boiling when poured. Heat softens the lettuce so it wilts lightly, while the crisp texture is preserved only if the lettuce is not overheated or left to sit before serving.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes