Name: Lettuce Salad
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce; coarse sea salt (to taste); olive oil (for dressing); lemon juice (for dressing)

Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

1 head of lettuce
coarse sea salt (to taste)
olive oil (for dressing)
lemon juice (for dressing)

Directions

Weigh the head of lettuce with the roots.
Remove inedible portions and weigh again.
Wash each section thoroughly and dry on a cloth without bruising.
Arrange the lettuce in a salad bowl with larger leaves outside and tender ones in the center.
Roll or fold imperfect leaves and cut them into shreds for other salads.

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 + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

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