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Salad

Breakfast Salad

A salad of tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, spring onion, dressed with oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Breakfast Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the tomatoes, remove the skin, and chill them in cold water or on ice until cold.

  2. Cut the tomatoes into segments like an orange.

  3. Peel and slice the cucumber into very thin slices.

  4. Mince the spring onion.

Dress and serve

  1. Sprinkle the vegetables with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the oil and vinegar over the mixture.

  3. Shred the lettuce and place it on top 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.

  1. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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 the main body and juicy moisture of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and a cool, fresh bulk to the salad.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the vegetables and balances the oil.
Lettuce
Forms a crisp, leafy base and adds a light, fresh crunch on top.

The step that matters

Chill the tomatoes until cold. Scalding loosens the skin so it peels off cleanly, and chilling firms the flesh so the segments hold their shape instead of going soft and watery in the dressing.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, lettuce, vinegar, 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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