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Salad

Roman Salad

A salad of cos lettuce seasoned with vinegar, sweetened with honey, and topped with chopped onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roman Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, trim, and dry the lettuce.

  2. Tear the lettuce into small pieces.

Dress and serve

  1. Season the lettuce with vinegar and sweeten to taste with honey.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped onion over the salad.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Honey + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lettuce + honeytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 leaves that give the salad its bulk and texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that seasons the leaves and brightens the flavour.
Honey
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onion
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and bite.

The step that matters

Dry the lettuce thoroughly. Water left on the leaves dilutes the vinegar and honey, so the dressing slides off rather than clinging, and the leaves wilt sooner.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, honey, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, honey, 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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