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Salad

Wilted Lettuce

A salad of wilted lettuce dressed with ham, vinegar, and garnished with boiled egg rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wilted Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and carefully inspect the lettuce.

  2. Cut the ham into small pieces and fry until the fat is rendered.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. Once the fat is boiling, add the vinegar and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot dressing over the lettuce.

  3. Garnish with cold boiled eggs cut into rings.

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. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Ham + lettucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Rendered fat from the ham gives the dressing its savory flavor and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the fat.
Lettuce
Forms the base of the salad, providing crisp texture that the hot dressing softens slightly.
Cold boiled eggs
Add creamy texture and mild richness as a garnish.

The step that matters

Boiling the vinegar in the hot fat. Adding vinegar to the rendered fat and boiling it briefly combines the two into a warm dressing. Boiling only 1-2 minutes keeps the vinegar sharp, and the dressing must be poured while hot so it wilts the lettuce slightly.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, 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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