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Salad

Green Corn Salad

A salad of green corn, lettuces, watercress, beetroot, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Green Corn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the tin of green corn.

  2. Chop the lettuces and watercress.

  3. Peel and dice the beetroot.

  4. Slice the hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss gently.

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. Watercress + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + beetroottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Corn + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 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

Green corn
Adds sweetness and a tender, juicy bite to the salad.
Lettuces
Provide crisp leaves and most of the salad's body and moisture.
Watercress
Adds a peppery, slightly bitter flavour that balances the sweetness.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid colour to the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, watercress, beetroot, egg):

  1. Lettucethe original
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, watercress, beetroot, egg. 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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