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Salad

Mayonnaise Salad

A salad of lettuce dressed with thick mayonnaise, topped with lobster coral, parsley, capers, beetroot, chicken, red tongue, anchovies, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Mayonnaise Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the lettuce and place it in a serving dish.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Make the mayonnaise thick, almost like butter, and spread it over the salad.

  2. Sprinkle with lobster coral, chopped parsley, and capers.

  3. Add strips of red beetroot for color.

  4. If using chicken, cut it into shapes resembling a cock's comb and arrange it with similar pieces of red tongue around the base.

  5. Garnish with filleted anchovies and stoned olives for an elegant finish.

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. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Provides rich fat and moisture, coating the lettuce and giving the salad its creamy body.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp base that the dressing and garnishes rest on.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Stoned olives
Add a salty, savoury note that contrasts with the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Make the mayonnaise thick, almost like butter. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil and egg. If it is too thin it will run over the lettuce and make the salad soggy, so it needs to be stiff enough to hold its shape when spread.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, lobster, capers, beetroot, chicken, olive):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, lobster, capers, beetroot, chicken, olive. 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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