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Salad

Lettuce Salad with Cream Dressing

A salad of lettuce dressed with a mixture of vinegar, pepper, salt, and thick sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Lettuce Salad with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the head of lettuce, leaving only the crisp, clean leaves.

  2. Break the leaves from the head; if they are clean, do not wash them. If not, wash quickly in cold water and drain.

  3. Tear each leaf into 3 or 4 pieces and place in a towel or napkin on ice or in a cold cellar.

Dress and serve

  1. At serving time, place the lettuce in a salad bowl.

  2. Mix the salt, pepper, and vinegar in a salad spoon and sprinkle over the lettuce; stir well.

  3. Add the cream, a spoonful at a time, mixing by tossing the lettuce lightly with a spoon and fork.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
Thick sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy coating to the leaves.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the cream and lettuce.

The step that matters

Add the cream a spoonful at a time. Adding cream gradually and tossing lightly spreads it evenly over the leaves without bruising them or making the dressing pool at the bottom of the bowl. Serving immediately keeps the leaves crisp.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, cream. 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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