Name: Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Ingredients: sliced tomatoes; peeled and sliced cucumbers; onion juice; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber 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 ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

sliced tomatoes
peeled and sliced cucumbers
onion juice
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Combine equal amounts of sliced tomatoes and peeled, sliced cucumbers, then add a little onion juice.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the mixture and mix well.
Serve very cold.

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.

Tomato + cucumbertop 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

Tomatoes: Provide juicy moisture and fresh, slightly acidic flavor to the salad.
Cucumbers: Add crisp texture and cooling moisture that balances the richer dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that coats the vegetables and carries their flavor.
Onion juice: Adds sharp, aromatic flavor that brightens the salad.