Name: Mixing Salads
Ingredients: Lettuce; Cucumber; Grape leaves; Oil; Coarse sea salt; Vinegar; Pepper

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

Wash and dry the lettuce and cucumber.
Shred the lettuce and cucumber into fine thread-like pieces.
Add tender grape leaves and tendrils if available.
In a bowl, combine oil, coarse sea salt, vinegar, and pepper to taste.
Dress the salad with the mixture and toss gently.

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).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,909 recipes

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

Swap the grape

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.