Name: Daisy Salad
Ingredients: mayonnaise or cooked dressing; small crisp leaves of lettuce; 3 eggs

Why it works: Lettuce and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,301 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Daisy Salad

Ingredients

mayonnaise or cooked dressing
small crisp leaves of lettuce
3 eggs

Directions

Prepare

Spread a layer of mayonnaise or cooked dressing on the bottom of a salad dish.
Arrange small crisp leaves of lettuce on top.

Cook the eggs

Cook the eggs in water at 180°F (82°C) for twenty minutes, then plunge them into cold water.

Assemble the daisy

Cut the egg whites into six large petals and arrange them on the lettuce to resemble daisy petals.
Press the yolks through a strainer and heap them in the center.

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 + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise or cooked dressing: Provides moisture and richness that coats the salad dish base and lettuce.
Small crisp leaves of lettuce: Adds crisp texture and a fresh base for the egg garnish.
Eggs: Egg whites form the petals and sieved yolks make the center, giving structure and richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs at a low temperature. Cooking eggs gently at 180°F for twenty minutes sets the whites firmly while keeping the yolks tender and free of a grey ring. Cooling them quickly in cold water stops further cooking and makes the shells and whites easier to handle.

“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.