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Salad

English Salad

A salad of lettuce, watercress, mustard cress, radishes, spring onions, 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. In a large bowl, mix together the shredded lettuce, watercress, mustard cress, sliced radishes, and finely sliced spring onions.

Dress and serve

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

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

  3. Garnish with sliced tomatoes and serve.

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

Oil
Carries the dressing and coats the leaves with a light, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, rounding out the dressing's flavour.
Shredded lettuce
Forms the crisp, watery base of the salad and gives it body.

The step that matters

Tossing the dressing gently. Leafy greens bruise and wilt when handled roughly, and oil and vinegar separate if not combined just before serving. Gentle tossing keeps the leaves crisp and coats them evenly with dressing.

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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