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Salad

Pepper and Onion Salad

A salad of sliced peppers and onions tossed with French dressing and served cold on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pepper and Onion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove stems and seeds from the peppers.

  2. Soak the peppers in ice water.

  3. Chop the chilled peppers and Bermuda onion finely.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix the chopped vegetables with French dressing.

  2. Serve on lettuce leaves and keep very cold.

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. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green sweet peppers
Provide the main crisp, fresh bulk of the salad.
Bermuda onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the peppers.
French dressing
Adds moisture and acidity that season the chopped vegetables.

The step that matters

Soak the peppers in ice water. Cold water firms the cell walls of the pepper, helping it stay crisp rather than limp after chopping and dressing. Chilling also keeps the salad crisp when served.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lettuce):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lettuce. 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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