Name: Combination Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped green pepper; 1 cup chopped red pepper; 1 cup chopped onion; 1 cup tomato, cut into pieces; 1 cup sliced cucumbers; 1 cup chayote; Shredded tender lettuce; French salad dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Combination Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the green pepper, red pepper, onion, tomato, cucumbers, and chayote separately.
Measure each ingredient and mix them together.

Serve

Serve the mixture on a bed of shredded tender lettuce.
Drizzle with French salad dressing before serving.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Chayote + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cucumber + chayotetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 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 pepper: Adds crisp texture and fresh, slightly bitter flavor.
Red pepper: Adds crisp texture and mild sweetness.
Onion: Adds sharp aroma and pungent flavor.
Tomato: Adds moisture and acidity.
Cucumbers: Adds cool, watery crunch and moisture.
Chayote: Adds mild, crisp body to the mixture.

Swap the onion

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

Okrafits better
Spinachfits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, cucumber, chayote, 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.