Why it works: Lettuce and mint work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 569 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-hexanol, which smells resin, flower. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the lettuces and dry them.
Cut the inside leaves into 1-inch lengths.
Dress and serve
In a salad bowl, combine the lettuce with Salad Sauce.
Just before serving, gently toss the salad with a spoon and fork, being careful not to bruise it.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.
If serving with mutton or lamb, add chopped mint.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Lettuce + minttop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together569 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).
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Lettuce + saucetop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,019 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + minttop 20% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together568 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lettuces
- Form the body of the salad, providing crisp leaves that hold the dressing.
- Salad sauce (no. 72)
- Coats the leaves, adding moisture and flavour to the salad.
The step that matters
Tossing just before serving. Lettuce leaves wilt and bruise once they are coated and left standing, since dressing draws water out of cut cells. Tossing gently at the last moment keeps the leaves crisp and intact.
Flavor stand-ins for the mint
The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, sauce):
- Capersbetter flavor fit
- Tarragonbetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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