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Veal Salad

A salad of shredded veal, lettuce, endive, capers, lemon juice, and dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Veal Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the veal with salt and pepper.

  2. Sprinkle liberally with lemon juice and let it sit for 1 hour.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the capers and lettuce, then moisten with salad dressing.

  2. Serve garnished with tufts of endive.

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Endive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the salad as its protein.
Lemon juice
Acidity firms the surface of the veal and brightens the overall flavor.
Capers
Add briny, sharp bursts of acidity that cut through the richness of the veal.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture and fat that coat the leaves and meat.

The step that matters

Marinating the veal in lemon juice for 1 hour. Acid slowly denatures proteins near the surface of the meat, changing its texture. Too little time leaves the veal raw-tasting in the centre, while too long makes the surface mealy and firm. Keep the meat cold and watch the timing.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lettuce, endive, capers, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lettuce, endive, capers, pepper. 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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