Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Lettuce Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the lettuce and place it in salad dishes.
Dress and serve
In a bowl, mix the chopped onion, lemon juice, olive oil, and coarse sea salt.
Pour the dressing over the lettuce.
Garnish with slices of hard boiled egg if desired.
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.
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Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,922 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,562 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,559 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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 salad and carries the dressing.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing body.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
- Onion
- Adds sharp, aromatic flavour to the dressing.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, lemon, olive, egg):
- Spinachfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Cucumberfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, lemon, olive, 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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