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Lettuce Braized, Spanish Style

A dish of lettuce braised with pork fat, herbs, onions, and reduced Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Lettuce Braized, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Trim off the outer leaves of the lettuce, wash them in cold water, and drain well.

  2. Parboil the lettuce for 5 minutes, immerse in cold water, and press each head to remove excess water.

Braise

  1. Line a deep flat saucepan with thin slices of fat pork and arrange the lettuce heads side by side.

  2. Season the lettuce with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then add parsley, bay leaves, thyme, and onions with cloves.

  3. Cover the lettuce with more slices of fat pork and moisten with stock broth.

  4. Cover the saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to cook slowly until done.

Glaze and serve

  1. Drain the lettuce on a sieve and sponge off excess grease with a napkin.

  2. Place the lettuce in a saucepan with half glaze and set in the oven until glazed.

  3. Serve with reduced Espagnole sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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

Lettuce
Its heads hold together and become tender as they braise slowly in liquid.
Fat pork
Melts slowly during braising, adding fat and richness that flavours the lettuce.
Stock broth
Provides the cooking liquid that moistens the lettuce and carries savoury flavour.
Half glaze
Concentrated stock that adds body and a glossy, savoury coating when reduced.
Reduced espagnole sauce
Adds a rich, thickened brown sauce that deepens flavour when served alongside.

The step that matters

Parboil and press the lettuce. Parboiling softens the leaves so they can be shaped and braised, while pressing out excess water keeps the braising liquid from being diluted and the heads from turning soggy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, pork, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pork, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, clove. 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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