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Salad

Pimento Salad

A chilled salad of finely chopped pimento mixed with cream cheese and mayonnaise, served in lettuce nests.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lettuce 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 ↓

Pimento Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the pimento.

  2. Mix the chopped pimento with the cream cheeses and chill on ice.

  3. Just before serving, add the mayonnaise dressing to the mixture.

  4. Optionally, mix in sliced fresh green peppers or fresh tomatoes.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad in nests made from the lettuce leaves.

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. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + cream cheesetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,195 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheeses
Provide a rich, creamy base that gives the salad body and mild richness.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and tang, keeping the mixture moist and creamy.
Pimento
Contributes sweet, mild pepper flavor and color to the salad.
Lettuce
Forms edible nests that hold the salad and add crisp, fresh contrast.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream cheese. 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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