Name: A Combination Salad
Ingredients: 1 head of crisp lettuce; 1 medium cucumber, sliced; 2 young onions, sliced; 4 radishes, sliced; ⅓ cup olive oil; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon sugar

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 ↓

A Combination Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a large salad bowl, toss the lettuce leaves with the cucumber, onions, and radishes.
In a separate bowl, mix the olive oil, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and sugar to make the dressing.
Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil: Carries the flavors of the dressing and coats the vegetables to add richness.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Sugar: Adds a small amount of sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the lemon.
Cucumber: Provides crisp, watery texture and fresh body to the salad.
Radishes: Add peppery crunch and a sharp bite to the salad.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, cucumber, radish, olive, lemon, pepper, sugar):

Broccolifits better
Mustardfits better
Beetrootfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, radish, olive, lemon, pepper, sugar. 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.