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Salad

French Spring Salad

A salad of shredded lettuce, maize, dandelion leaves, onions, dressed with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, mustard, mint, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard 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 ↓

French Spring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the lettuce leaves finely.

  2. Coarsely chop the tender blades of maize, wheat, or corn.

  3. Add the finely minced onions and dandelion leaves.

  4. In a salad bowl, combine all ingredients.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix with salad oil and vinegar.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, mustard, mint, and tarragon. Mix well together.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Dandelion + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dandelion + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salad oil
Coats the leaves with fat, adding richness and carrying the flavour of the herbs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the greens and balances the oil.
Seedling lettuce
Forms the base of the salad, providing crisp, watery texture.
Dandelion leaves
Contribute a bitter, leafy flavour that stands up to the dressing.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, dandelion, lettuce, onion, vinegar, pepper, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, dandelion, lettuce, onion, vinegar, pepper, mustard. 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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