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Salad

Cucumber Salad

A salad of thinly sliced cucumbers dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers very thin.

  2. Soak the slices in cold water for 1 hour, then drain and dry them.

Dress and serve

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the cucumbers with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix the oil and vinegar.

  3. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, watery body of the salad, which the dressing clings to.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and coats the cucumber slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Salt draws water out of cucumber slices, so once the dressing is poured over them the salad loses its crispness and becomes watery. Serving right away keeps the slices crisp and the dressing fresh.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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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