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Cucumber Salad

A chilled cucumber salad made with gelatin, vinegar, and cayenne, served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Directions

Make the mold

  1. Slice the cucumbers and boil until tender enough to pass through a wire strainer.

  2. Puree the boiled cucumbers and mix in the water.

  3. Heat the mixture and dissolve the gelatin.

  4. Add the vinegar, celery salt, salt, and cayenne to the mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture into a ring mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Unmold the salad and fill the center with tomato cubes.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise.

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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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 main body and fresh, mild flavor of the salad once pureed.
Gelatin
Sets the pureed cucumber mixture so it holds its ring shape when unmolded.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the mild cucumber flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before pouring into the mold. Gelatin only sets properly when fully dissolved in warm liquid. Undissolved granules leave weak spots and grainy texture, so the salad may not hold its shape when unmolded.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, celery, gelatin, tomato):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, celery, gelatin, tomato. 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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