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English Salads

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

English Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Gather fresh herbs and vegetables, ensuring they are free from insects and thoroughly washed.

  2. Prepare the salad just before serving; do not sauce until ready to serve.

  3. Cut off the stems and strip away the outer leaves of the lettuces.

  4. Slice half-grown cucumbers thinly and mix them with the other ingredients.

  5. For a simple salad, slice young celery and dress it with a rich salad mixture.

  6. Include baked or boiled beet-root, blanched endive, and any readily dressed vegetables for winter salads.

  7. Add cucumber vinegar for extra flavor.

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  2. Chive + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  5. Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, mustard, radish, chive, cucumber, endive, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, mustard, radish, chive, cucumber, endive, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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