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Salad

Cucumber Salad, German Style

A salad of sliced cucumbers, green onions, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers.

  2. Add the sliced green onions.

Dress and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.

  2. Add the chopped parsley and mix well.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery body that makes up most of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the oil.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Green onions
Contribute a sharp, fresh onion aroma and bite.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that lifts the salad.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, vinegar, parsley. 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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