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Lettuce Sandwiches

A sandwich with crisp lettuce topped with a vinegar-based dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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 ↓

Lettuce Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, bring vinegar and water to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat together egg, cornstarch, mustard, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling vinegar and cook until the cornstarch thickens.

  4. Let the dressing cool.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Butter thin slices of bread and lay crisp lettuce leaves on top.

  2. Spread the dressing thinly over the lettuce and assemble the sandwiches.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens and enriches the dressing as it cooks with the vinegar mixture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing into a spreadable consistency when it is cooked.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Yellow ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling vinegar and cook until thickened. Adding the egg mixture to boiling liquid while stirring keeps it smooth, and cooking it until the cornstarch thickens sets the dressing to a spreadable texture. Stirring constantly helps prevent the egg from curdling into lumps.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, egg, mustard, sugar, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, mustard, sugar, pepper, bread. 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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