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Roman Meal Cakes with Lettuce and Syrup Dressing

A cake made from Roman meal, water, sugar, and butter, served with lettuce and syrup dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roman Meal Cakes with Lettuce and Syrup Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix Roman meal with water and sugar.

  2. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  3. Pour the mixture into the skillet and cook until golden brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. Serve with fresh lettuce and drizzle with syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + lettucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,287 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + syruptop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + lettucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Roman meal
Forms the main body of the cakes, setting as it cooks in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the cakes and a rich flavor in the skillet.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking until golden brown on both sides. The cakes need enough time for the surface sugars and starches to brown and set; cooking too briefly leaves them soft and pale, while too much heat can scorch the outside before the centre sets.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, syrup):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, syrup. 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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