Name: Cucumber Salad with Cream Dressing
Ingredients: 5 tablespoons sour cream; 2 tablespoons vinegar; ½ teaspoon paprika; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon chopped chives; cucumbers

Why it works: Chive and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 244 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mix sour cream, vinegar, paprika, salt, and chives until smooth.
Ensure the paprika is well incorporated without clumps.

Serve

Add the dressing to sliced cucumbers and serve.

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.

Chive + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together244 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Vinegar + chivetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,065 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + chivetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together700 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,064 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream: Provides the creamy body and rich fat that make up the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the cream.
Cucumbers: Form the crisp, watery base that the dressing coats.