Why it works: Egg and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,301 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Egg Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the eggs for 20 minutes.
Chop the egg whites finely.
Assemble and serve
Arrange a bed of cress or lettuce on a dish or separate plates.
Make nests with the chopped egg whites and place one whole yolk in the center of each nest.
Drizzle with cooked or French dressing just before serving.
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.
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Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,301 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Provide the main body of the dish, with chopped whites forming the nests and whole yolks adding richness.
- Cress or lettuce
- Forms a crisp, fresh bed that contrasts with the soft eggs.
- Cooked or french dressing
- Adds fat and acidity that moisten the eggs and season the greens.
The step that matters
Boil the eggs for 20 minutes. Boiling too long causes a grey-green ring around the yolk, from iron and sulfur compounds reacting at the yolk surface. Timing the boil keeps the yolks set but tender and the colour bright.
“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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