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Stewed Lettuce

A dish of boiled lettuce simmered with butter, pepper, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Lettuce

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over and wash the lettuce well.

  2. Boil the lettuce in salted water until soft.

  3. Drain and place in cold water for 20 minutes.

Finish

  1. Chop the lettuce and place it in a saucepan with butter, pepper, salt, and milk.

  2. Stir continuously until it boils.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Lettuce + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the body of the dish, softening into a tender, spoonable mass when boiled.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild creaminess, loosening the lettuce into a sauce-like texture.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until it boils. Milk proteins can scorch and stick to the base of the saucepan when heated without constant stirring, which burns the flavor and leaves a grainy texture. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the mixture smooth.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk. 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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