Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lettuce Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lettuce
Break off the leaves from the heads of lettuce.
Wash the leaves and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.
Drain the lettuce and lay it on a cloth to absorb excess water.
Dress and serve
Place the lettuce in a salad bowl and pour over the French dressing, gently turning the leaves.
Serve immediately with crackers, cheese, and olives.
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.
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Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,802 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
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Lettuce + cheesetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together614 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Heads of lettuce
- Forms the bulk of the salad, providing crisp leaves and fresh volume.
- French dressing
- Adds moisture, acidity and flavour that coat the leaves.
- Cheese
- Adds richness and salty flavour that contrasts with the crisp leaves.
The step that matters
Drain and dry the lettuce before dressing. Excess water left on the leaves dilutes the dressing and makes the salad soggy, so the leaves should be patted or laid on a cloth to dry before dressing.
Swap the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, olive):
- Tomatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, olive. 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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