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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

A salad of tomatoes stuffed with cucumber and dressing, served on lettuce.

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 ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and scald the tomatoes, then remove the skins.

  2. Cut off the stem ends and scoop out the pulp.

Fill and serve

  1. Mix the pulp with salad dressing and finely diced cucumber.

  2. Refill the tomatoes with the mixture.

  3. Place the stuffed tomatoes on lettuce leaves.

  4. Add a little thick dressing and serve.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Firm medium-sized tomatoes
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling.
Finely diced cucumber
Adds crisp texture to the filling.
Salad dressing
Moistens the pulp and seasons the filling.
Thick dressing
Adds richness and flavour to the finished dish.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce. 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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