Name: Lettuce
Ingredients: 5 or 6 leaves of early lettuce; cold water; hard-boiled eggs; vinegar; oil; made mustard; salad dressing; small red radishes

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

Break the leaves apart from the stalk and rinse them in cold water.

Assemble the salad

Lay the largest leaves in a salad bowl, followed by medium-sized leaves, and top with the finest white leaves.
Slice hard-boiled eggs and arrange them around the edge and over the salad.
Serve with vinegar, oil, and made mustard on the side.

Alternative method

Alternatively, cut the washed lettuce into small pieces and place in a glass dish.
Pour salad dressing over the cut salad and garnish with halved or sliced radishes and quartered or sliced hard-boiled eggs before serving.

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.

Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 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

Lettuce: Forms the leafy base and provides the crisp, fresh texture of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and substance, and give the salad a mild, creamy contrast to the greens.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts through the richness of the oil.
Oil: Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, coating body.
Made mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the oil and vinegar dressing.