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Salad

English Salad

A salad of lettuce, watercress, mustard, radishes, spring onions, and tomatoes dressed with oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

English Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Mix together the lettuce, watercress, mustard and cress, radishes, and spring onions.

Dress and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, salt, and pepper with the oil and vinegar.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently.

  3. Serve garnished with sliced tomatoes.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Watercress + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 that holds the dressing.
Oil
Coats the leaves and carries flavour, giving the dressing body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Toss the salad gently. Leafy greens bruise and wilt easily under heavy handling. Tossing gently with the dressing just before serving keeps the leaves crisp and lightly coated rather than soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, watercress, mustard, radish, sugar, 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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