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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A lettuce salad with onion, peppergrass, celery, nuts, and a vinaigrette of vinegar, egg yolks, mustard, salt, sugar, butter, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Combine shredded lettuce, chopped onion, peppergrass, celery, and nuts in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix vinegar, egg yolks, mustard, salt, sugar, and butter in a separate bowl until well combined.

  2. Beat the mixture until light.

  3. Gradually add the boiling vinegar while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to the stove and beat until thick, but do not let it boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream just 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.

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

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

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, slightly vegetal flavor to the salad.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel in the cooked dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the mixture boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the dressing grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, onion, celery, vinegar, egg, mustard, sugar):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, onion, celery, vinegar, egg, mustard, sugar. 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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