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Salad

English Salad

A salad of lettuce, watercress, mustard cress, radishes, spring onions, tomatoes, dressed with oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

English Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine shredded lettuce, watercress, mustard cress, sliced radishes, and finely sliced spring onions.

  2. Add sugar, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  3. Drizzle with equal parts oil and vinegar, then toss gently to combine all ingredients.

  4. Top with sliced tomatoes before serving.

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 + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Watercress + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Carries flavor and coats the leaves, giving the salad a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the greens and balances the oil and sugar.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, watery base that gives the salad its bulk and crunch.

The step that matters

Dressing the leaves. Toss gently just before serving. Oil and vinegar coat the leaves without bruising them, and salting or dressing too early can wilt the greens and make them soggy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, watercress, mustard, radish, sugar, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, watercress, mustard, radish, sugar, pepper, 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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