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Stewed Lettuces

A simple dish of stewed lettuce cooked with salt, pepper, butter, flour, broth, and vinegar, served hot with fried sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Lettuces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Remove the outer leaves and stalks from the lettuce, then wash thoroughly.

  2. Soak the lettuce in salted water for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Lift the lettuce out and press out excess water, then chop it slightly.

Cook and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, heat the chopped lettuce with pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and stir well.

  3. Add the broth or gravy and boil quickly until the mixture is fairly dry.

  4. Stir in the vinegar or lemon juice and serve hot with fried sippets.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the dish and, once softened, becomes the tender body of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the lettuce is held together rather than swimming in liquid.
Broth or gravy
Supplies the savoury cooking liquid that the lettuce absorbs and reduces.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavour to the lettuce as it heats.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter and gravy.

The step that matters

Boil quickly until fairly dry. A brisk boil reduces the liquid and lets the flour thicken the mixture; a gentle simmer leaves it watery and loose.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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