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Salad

Summer Salad

A fresh salad of lettuce, radishes, cucumber, mustard greens, cress, topped with hard-boiled eggs and French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ingredients in cold water for 1–2 hours if they are not very fresh.

  2. Drain the ingredients carefully using a cloth.

  3. Cut the lettuce into small pieces and slice the radishes and cucumber thinly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the lettuce, radishes, and cucumber in a salad bowl, topping with mustard greens and cress.

  2. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Pour French salad dressing under the salad just before serving.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the crisp body of the salad and holds the dressing.
Radishes
Add a sharp, peppery crunch that contrasts with the mild greens.
Cucumber
Adds cool moisture and a light, fresh crunch.
Mustard greens
Contribute a pungent, slightly bitter bite.
Cress
Adds a sharp, peppery aroma and fresh leafy texture.

The step that matters

Drain the ingredients carefully using a cloth. Excess water left on leaves dilutes the dressing and makes the salad limp. Gentle patting keeps the leaves crisp and lets the dressing cling to them.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, cucumber, mustard):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, mustard. 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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