Name: Sweet and Sour Salad
Ingredients: 1 cucumber, sliced into thin pieces; 6 tomatoes, chopped; 2 onions, chopped; 2 green chilies, chopped; 1/2 tsp chili powder; 2 tbsp coriander leaves; 2 tbsp sugar or jaggery; Marble size of tamarind; Salt to taste

Why it works: Tomato and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,966 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

The recipe

Time5 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: bread

Directions

Prepare the tamarind

Soak tamarind in 2 tbsp hot water for 5 minutes.
Squeeze and strain out thick tamarind juice from it.

Dress and serve

Mix salt, chili powder, sugar and strained tamarind juice into the chopped vegetables.
Stir well and chill the vegetables until required.
Serve with bread slices.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + coriandertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,966 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Cucumber + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Coriander + tamarindtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together271 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Cucumber + coriandertop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together875 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Tomato + tamarindtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together137 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the fresh, juicy body of the salad and release liquid that mixes with the dressing.
Tamarind: Adds sourness that balances the sugar and chili.
Sugar or jaggery: Adds sweetness that offsets the sourness of the tamarind.
Cucumber: Adds crisp texture and moisture to the salad.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, coriander, sugar, tamarind):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
Lettucebetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, coriander, sugar, tamarind. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.