Name: Cucumber Salad with Smoked Salmon
Prep time: 30 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 1 cup plain Greek yogurt; 1 cup light sour cream; 1/2 lemon, juiced; 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, or to taste; 2 tablespoons capers, chopped; 1 shallot, minced; 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar, or to taste; salt and black pepper to taste; 2 large cucumbers, peeled and sliced; 2 tomatoes, sliced; 1 (3 ounce) package smoked salmon, flaked

Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + dilltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together976 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Dill + caperstop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together117 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Dill + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,630 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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (yogurt, cream, dill, capers, shallot, vinegar, pepper):

Limefits about as well
Lemonthe original
Avocadofits about as well
Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against yogurt, cream, dill, capers, shallot, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Smoked Salmon	100g cooked	208
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Shallot	1 tbsp minced (10g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Dill	5 sprigs fresh (1g) / 1 tsp dried	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Capers	1 tbsp (9g) drained	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Cucumber Salad with Smoked Salmon