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Wilted Lettuce

A quick side dish of lettuce wilted in ham fat, seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Wilted Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the fat in a skillet until very hot.

  2. Add the broken lettuce and cook for 1 minute, just until wilted.

  3. Stir in the vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  4. 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the body of the dish, softening as it wilts in the hot fat.
Fat from ham, bacon, or ham gravy
Carries heat into the lettuce and adds savory flavor for the wilting.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Add the lettuce to very hot fat and cook only 1 minute. Very hot fat wilts the leaves quickly. If the pan is not hot enough, the lettuce steams and turns limp and watery. Overcooking makes it dull and soggy, so it should be served right away.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, pepper, sugar. 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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