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Cucumber Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onions, and cucumbers seasoned with salt, pepper, and boiled dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the cold boiled potatoes and large onions.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Let stand for a few hours.

  4. Slice the medium cucumbers.

  5. Mix the cucumbers with the potatoes and onions.

  6. Serve with boiled dressing.

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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold their shape when sliced and mixed.
Onions
Add sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during standing.
Cucumbers
Add cool, moist crunch that contrasts with the soft potatoes.
Boiled dressing
Coats the salad and adds moisture and tang throughout.

The step that matters

Let stand for a few hours. Resting lets the salt and seasoning soak into the sliced potatoes and onions and softens the sharp raw onion flavour. Skipping this makes the salad taste flat and harsh.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, pepper. 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.

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