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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A salad of shredded lettuce with bacon, vinegar, onion, sugar, salt, and hard‑boiled egg slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and onion 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

  1. Wash, dry, and shred the lettuce leaves.

  2. Boil the bacon squares in the vinegar for a few minutes.

  3. Place the shredded lettuce in a salad bowl.

  4. Sprinkle the lettuce with sugar and salt.

  5. Add the minced onion to the lettuce.

Dress and serve

  1. Once the vinegar has cooled, pour it over the lettuce and mix lightly with a fork.

  2. Garnish with slices of hard boiled eggs.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + oniontop 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).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce leaves
Forms the crisp bulk of the salad and holds the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar.
Cold bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the warm vinegar dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds protein and a mild, creamy texture as garnish.

The step that matters

Let the vinegar cool before pouring it over the lettuce. Hot vinegar would wilt the lettuce leaves quickly, losing their crispness. Letting it cool slightly keeps the leaves crisp while still lightly warming the dressing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, vinegar, sugar, egg. 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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