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Spinach Salad

A salad of lettuce and spinach dressed with a raw egg vinaigrette and optional mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spinach Salad

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 ↓

Spinach Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the raw egg until light.

  2. Gradually add the oil or melted butter while stirring.

  3. Mix in the cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Stir in the vinegar or lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the lettuce and spinach.

  2. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg
Emulsifies the oil into the dressing, giving it a smooth, thickened body.
Oil or melted butter
Provides fat that carries flavor and coats the greens with a rich texture.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the fat.
Spinach tops
Forms the leafy base of the salad, with a tender, slightly earthy texture.
Lettuce leaves
Adds crisp, tender leaves that form the main body of the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the oil or melted butter. Adding the fat too quickly while stirring can prevent the egg from emulsifying, so the dressing separates instead of turning smooth and thick. Adding it gradually lets the egg proteins surround the oil droplets.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, spinach, egg, butter, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, spinach, egg, butter, pepper, 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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