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Stewed Lettuces

A dish of cooked lettuce simmered with butter, flour, broth, and vinegar, served hot with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Lettuces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Remove the outer leaves and stalks from the lettuce.

  2. Wash the lettuce thoroughly and soak in salted water.

  3. Cook the lettuce until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  4. Drain and chop the lettuce.

Stew and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, heat the chopped lettuce with butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Sprinkle in flour and stir well.

  3. Add broth or gravy and boil until mostly dry.

  4. Stir in vinegar or lemon juice and serve hot with fried bread pieces.

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. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Is the main vegetable, becoming tender and soft as it cooks and stews.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed lettuce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the lettuce clings together rather than running loose.
Broth or gravy
Supplies the savoury cooking liquid that is reduced to concentrate flavour.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, mellow flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Boil until mostly dry. Boiling off the added broth or gravy concentrates its flavour and leaves the flour-thickened lettuce with a spoonable body. Stopping too early leaves it watery and dull, while over-reducing can make it pasty and salty.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, 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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