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Dutch Lettuce

A salad of cabbage lettuces topped with fried ham or bacon, vinegar, egg, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Wash the lettuces and separate the leaves.

  2. Tear each leaf into about three pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. Dice the ham or bacon.

  2. Fry until brown.

  3. While hot, add the vinegar to the fried ham or bacon.

  4. Beat the egg until light.

  5. Mix in the sour cream.

  6. Stir the egg mixture into the ham.

  7. Cook over low heat until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the lettuce.

  2. Mix carefully 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. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cabbage + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together186 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuces
Forms the leafy base of the salad, providing crisp body and volume.
Ham or bacon
Supplies fat and savory flavor when fried, which carries into the warm dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the fatty pan drippings.
Egg
Thickens the warm dressing as it cooks, giving it a creamy, coating texture.
Sour cream
Adds richness and tang, smoothing the dressing and softening its sharpness.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture over low heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so the dressing thickens only gently over low heat. Higher heat can curdle the egg and leave it grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, ham, vinegar, egg, cream. 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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