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Salad

Lettuce Salad Plain

A simple salad of white lettuce dressed with salt, pepper, vinegar, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer green leaves and stems from the lettuce.

  2. Cut the leaves in half, wash well in cold water, and drain thoroughly.

  3. Place the lettuce in a salad bowl with the hearts on top.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix the salt and pepper with the vinegar, then add the oil.

  2. Pour the dressing over the lettuce, mix well, and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy body of the salad.
Sweet oil
Carries flavour and coats the leaves for a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the dressing and draws out flavour from the leaves.

The step that matters

Dress the lettuce just before serving. Salt and acid draw water out of lettuce leaves, so dressing too early makes them limp and watery. Tossing right before serving keeps the leaves crisp.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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