Name: Lettuce Salads
Ingredients: Lettuce; Cold boiled potatoes; Cold boiled beets; Hard-boiled eggs; Simple dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 322 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Lettuce Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Arrange cold boiled potatoes in the center of a serving dish.
Place cold boiled beets next to the potatoes.
Surround the potatoes and beets with lettuce.
Garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Drizzle with simple dressing before serving.

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 + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).