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Salad

A Green Salad

A salad of lettuce, peppers, cucumber, radishes, cabbage, dressed with vinegar and oil, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Green Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lettuce into long, fine strips and form it into a nest on a serving plate.

  2. Soak the red and green peppers overnight, then dry and cut them into rings or attractive pieces.

  3. Cut the cucumber into nice shapes and slice the radishes.

  4. Add the shredded cabbage, using two-thirds as much as the other ingredients.

Dress and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix the vinegar and oil to make a dressing, then lightly combine it with the salad ingredients.

  2. Place the salad mixture in the lettuce nest and top with a little whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Radish + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bed and bulk of the salad, giving a crisp base for the other ingredients.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the vegetables and balances the oil in the dressing.
Oil
Adds fat that coats the vegetables and carries flavour in the dressing.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a mild sweetness on top, softening the sharp dressing.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pepper, cucumber, radish, 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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