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Salad

Lettuce-and-Tomato Salad

A simple salad of lettuce and tomatoes dressed with salt, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lettuce-and-Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Remove the outer green leaves and core from the lettuce.

  2. Wash and drain the lettuce in a wire basket.

  3. Split and cut the leaves into quarters and place them in a bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Chop the tomatoes and add them to the bowl.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.

  3. Toss gently to combine and serve.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad.
Tomatoes
Add juiciness and a fresh, slightly acidic flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the leaves a smooth coating.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Toss gently to combine. Lettuce leaves bruise and wilt easily when handled roughly. Gentle tossing coats the leaves evenly with dressing while keeping them crisp.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, olive, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, olive, 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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