Skip to main content
Salad

Salad for Cold Lamb

A salad of lettuces, watercress, radishes, cress, tarragon, corn salad, chives, beetroot, dressed with oil, anchovy sauce, chili vinegar, egg yolks, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped lettuces, watercress, sliced radishes, cress, tarragon, corn-salad, chives, and diced beetroot.

Make the dressing

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

Toss and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and add the vinegar.

  2. Toss everything together until well 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

Lettuces
Forms the crisp bulk of the salad and carries the dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and cream to make a thick, smooth dressing.
Oil
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the dressing.
Beetroot
Adds sweetness and earthy colour to the salad.
Radishes
Add a crisp texture and a sharp, peppery bite.

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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes