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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

A fresh salad of sliced tomatoes and cucumber dressed with olive oil, vinegar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and cucumber.

  2. In a bowl, combine the sliced tomatoes and cucumber.

Dress and serve

  1. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.

  2. Sprinkle with black pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Toss gently to combine and serve fresh.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide juicy, sweet flesh that forms the body of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and cooling moisture to the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavors and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Toss gently to combine. Tomato flesh is soft and breaks down easily under rough handling. Gentle tossing keeps the pieces intact and limits the release of excess juice, which would otherwise dilute the dressing and make the salad watery.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Eggplantfits about as well
  4. Lettucefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, olive, 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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