Name: Mixing Salads
Ingredients: ½ cup oil; ¼ cup vinegar; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; lettuce; cucumber; grape leaves; tendrils

Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber 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 ↓

Mixing Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

Finely shred the lettuce and cucumber.
Add tender grape leaves and tendrils.

Dress and serve

Combine oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt in a bowl.
Dress the salad with the mixture to taste.
Serve undressed and let guests mix their own.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + grapetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,909 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 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

Lettuce: Forms the crisp, leafy bulk of the salad.
Cucumber: Adds moisture and cool, crunchy texture to the salad.
Grape leaves: Add a tender, tangy, slightly savory leafy element.
Oil: Carries flavor and coats the leaves, giving a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

Swap the grape

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Grapethe original

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