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Stewed Lettuce

A dish of boiled lettuce simmered with cream, butter, flour, pepper, and salt, served optionally with sardine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Boil the lettuce in salted water until tender.

  2. Transfer the lettuce to cold water.

  3. Cut the lettuce into larger pieces.

Finish and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lettuce with cream, butter, flour, pepper, and salt.

  2. Serve with a sardine if desired.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Is the main vegetable, cooked until tender so it becomes soft enough to stew.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the stewed lettuce a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the sauce feel rich and well rounded.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so it clings to the lettuce.

The step that matters

Combining the lettuce with the thickened cream sauce. Flour must be evenly mixed into the cream and butter so it thickens smoothly without lumps. Stirring gently while the mixture warms helps the flour hydrate fully and the sauce cling to the lettuce.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

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