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Salad

Pepper Salad

A salad of finely chopped green and red peppers, tomatoes, onion, lettuce, seasoned with salt, dressed with oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pepper Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Remove the skin from the green peppers and chop them finely.

  2. Peel and chop the red pepper very finely.

  3. Peel and chop the Spanish onion.

  4. Peel and chop the tomatoes.

  5. Mix the chopped ingredients with salt.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Separate the leaves of the lettuce, wash them in cold water, and dry them by shaking in a towel.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the lettuce and chopped salad in layers in a salad bowl.

  2. Pour over the salad oil and vinegar, then serve.

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. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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

Green peppers
Provide the main crisp, fresh bulk of the salad.
Tomatoes
Add juiciness and moisture that blends with the dressing.
Salad oil
Carries flavour and adds richness to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the vegetables and balances the oil.
Lettuce
Forms the leafy base that holds the chopped layers.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, tomato, lettuce, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, lettuce, vinegar. 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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