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Salad

Salad for Cold Lamb

A salad of lettuces, herbs, radishes, beetroot, and a dressing of oil, anchovy sauce, chili vinegar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salad for Cold Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large salad bowl, combine the chopped lettuces, herb de capuchin, watercress, radishes, tarragon, corn salad, chives, and beetroot.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, anchovy sauce, chili vinegar, beaten egg yolks with cream, and salt.

  3. Pour the dressing over the salad and add the vinegar. Toss everything together until evenly mixed.

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 + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Watercress + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsified with cream and oil to give the dressing a rich, smooth body.
Lucca or florence oil
Forms the base of the dressing and carries the flavour across the leaves.
Lettuces
Provide the bulk and crisp leafy texture of the salad.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and colour to the salad.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, watercress, tarragon, corn, chive, beetroot, anchovy):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, watercress, tarragon, corn, chive, beetroot, anchovy. 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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