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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A salad of lettuce with onion, dressed with oil, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bowl

  1. Cut the onion in half and wipe the salad bowl with one half, pressing to release the juice.

  2. Place the lettuce in the bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the oil over the lettuce and gently toss.

  2. Add the vinegar and salt 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. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, leafy texture.
Oil
Adds fat that coats the leaves, giving a silky mouthfeel and carrying flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the oil.
Onion
Its juice flavors the bowl with a sharp aroma that lightly seasons the leaves.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar and salt just before serving. Vinegar and salt draw water out of lettuce leaves, so they wilt quickly if added early. Adding them just before serving keeps the leaves crisp.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, 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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