Name: Cucumber Salad
Ingredients: Cucumbers; Chopped tomatoes; Onion juice; Mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Cucumbers
Chopped tomatoes
Onion juice
Mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Prepare

Peel the cucumbers and cut them in half lengthwise.
Remove the seeds from the cucumbers and place them in a cool place until ready to serve.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, mix the chopped tomatoes with onion juice and mayonnaise dressing.
Fill the cucumber halves with the tomato mixture before serving.

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.

Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers: Provide the crisp, watery base that holds the filling.
Chopped tomatoes: Add moisture and fresh, slightly acidic flavor to the filling.
Onion juice: Adds sharp, aromatic onion flavor to the tomato mixture.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the tomato mixture together.