Why it works: Lettuce and radish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lettuce Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the inner leaves of the lettuce carefully in cold water.
Lay the washed leaves in a clean, dry towel to absorb moisture.
Serve
Serve the lettuce with French dressing and accompany with radishes.
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.
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Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together58 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lettuce
- Forms the crisp, leafy base that holds the dressing and gives the salad its texture.
- French dressing
- Adds moisture, acidity and fat that coat the leaves and carry the flavour.
- Radishes
- Add a sharp, peppery crunch that contrasts with the mild lettuce.
The step that matters
Drying the lettuce leaves. Water left on the leaves dilutes the dressing so it slides off instead of coating them. Drying the leaves on a towel helps the dressing cling and keeps the salad crisp.
“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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