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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A salad of white lettuce with a dressing of boiled egg yolk, sugar, mustard, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Crush the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs into a powder.

  2. Mix in the sugar, pepper, salt, mustard, and salad oil; let it stand for five minutes.

  3. Beat in the vinegar.

Assemble the salad

  1. Cut the lettuce with a knife and fork (do not use a chopper).

  2. Place the lettuce in a bowl, add the dressing, and toss with a silver fork.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Crushed yolks form a smooth, creamy base that thickens the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and silkiness, carrying flavour and coating the lettuce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat and sugar.
White sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard for a rounder flavour.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp aroma and helps emulsify the oil into the dressing.

The step that matters

Let the dressing stand before adding the vinegar. Letting the crushed yolks, sugar, seasonings and oil rest lets the salt and sugar dissolve and the flavours meld before the acid is added, giving a smoother, more even dressing.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, mustard, pepper, 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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