Why it works: Lettuce and mint work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 569 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
English Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lettuce
Rinse and wipe the lettuce leaves with a soft cloth.
Split the leaves down the stalk and divide each half into four pieces.
Dress and serve
Place the lettuce pieces in a salad bowl with the mint leaves.
Season with salad oil, vinegar, moist sugar, pepper, and salt. Mix well and serve.
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.
-
Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together569 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,037 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,372 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,370 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
- Coss lettuce
- Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
- Salad oil
- Adds fat and smooth mouthfeel that coats the leaves.
- Vinegar
- Provides acidity that brightens the dressing.
- Moist sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Swap the mint
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, vinegar, sugar, pepper):
- Tarragonfits better
- Dillfits better
- Peppermintfits better
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, vinegar, sugar, 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.
More english salad recipes
You might also like
Chicken Salad623 recipes
Salad Dressing491 recipes
Tomato Salad179 recipes
Cold Slaw160 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.