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Salad

Cucumber Francaise Salad

A salad of sliced cucumber, lettuce, mayonnaise, and finely chopped green peppers, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cucumber Francaise Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cucumber and soak it in salt water for several hours.

  2. Place the cucumber on a bed of lettuce.

  3. Slice the cucumber thinly without removing the slices to keep it whole.

Dress and garnish

  1. Cover the cucumber with mayonnaise.

  2. Sprinkle finely chopped green peppers on top.

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. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Cucumber
Supplies the crisp, watery body of the salad, which the salt soak firms and seasons.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that coat the cucumber slices and give richness.
Green peppers
Add fresh, slightly sharp flavor and a crunchy texture on top.
Lettuce
Provides a cool, crisp base that holds the cucumber in place.

The step that matters

Soaking the cucumber in salt water. Salt draws water out of the cucumber through osmosis, seasoning it and firming the flesh. Soaking too briefly leaves it bland and soft, while soaking too long can make it limp and overly salty.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, 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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