Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Cut green peppers into rings and fill with cottage cheese and pimentoes.
Serve cottage cheese and ground nuts on a bed of lettuce.
Form cottage cheese into balls and dot with paprika; serve three balls in a nest of spinach, parsley, or lettuce.
Place cottage cheese balls on slices of tomato and top with stiff salad dressing.
Serve on a lettuce leaf and garnish with stuffed olives and yolk of hard boiled egg.
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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together427 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
-
Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,539 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,483 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
-
Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,025 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, pepper, lettuce, spinach, parsley, tomato, olive):
- Chickpeafits better
- Beansfits better
- Lentilsfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, pepper, lettuce, spinach, parsley, tomato, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes
Macaroni and Cheese102 recipes
Tomato Bisque61 recipes