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Wilted Lettuce

A salad of wilted lettuce dressed with vinegar, bacon drippings, salt, pepper, onions, and topped with sliced hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Wilted Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Wash the lettuce and place it in a deep dish.

  2. Cut the lettuce crosswise several times.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add chopped young onions.

Dress and serve

  1. Boil the vinegar and bacon drippings together.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the lettuce.

  3. Cover the dish for a few moments.

  4. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg before serving.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the dish and wilts when the hot dressing is poured over it.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the hot drippings.
Bacon drippings
Adds fat and smoky flavour to the hot dressing.
Young onions
Add a sharp, fresh onion flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling mixture over the lettuce. The dressing must be boiling hot when poured so it wilts the leaves quickly while they stay crisp enough to hold their shape. Lukewarm dressing would leave the lettuce limp and raw-tasting.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, ham, pepper, onion, egg):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ham, pepper, onion, 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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