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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A lettuce salad dressed with a yolk-based sauce of salt, mustard, olive oil or butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs finely.

  2. Add salt and mustard to taste.

  3. Mix in 2 teaspoons of olive oil or melted butter until smooth.

  4. Gradually dilute the mixture by adding 1 cup of water.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the lettuce.

  2. Slice the remaining hard-boiled egg and lay it over the lettuce as a garnish.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the mashed yolks into a smooth dressing.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Lettuce
Forms the base of the salad that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Mix in the oil or butter until smooth. Fat must be worked into the mashed yolks gradually so they emulsify. Adding it too fast can break the mixture, leaving it greasy and separated rather than smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, 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.

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