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Salad

Italian Salad

A salad of shredded lettuce, anchovies, parsley, capers, hard‑boiled eggs, beetroot, mayonnaise, vinegar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Thoroughly dry the lettuce in a cloth.

  2. Shred the lettuce.

  3. Sprinkle the lettuce with salt and vinegar.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Chop the parsley and capers.

  2. Roll the anchovies in a salad bowl.

  3. Garnish the salad with the quartered eggs and beetroot.

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 + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Capers + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the crisp base of the salad, and drying it well keeps the dressing from thinning.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that stands out against the mild lettuce.
Eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the salad a smooth, rich coating.

The step that matters

Thoroughly dry the lettuce. Any water left on the leaves dilutes the mayonnaise and vinegar and makes the salad watery. Dry leaves hold dressing and stay crisp.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, capers, egg, beetroot, 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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