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Salad

Cucumbers Served with Cream

A chilled cucumber and onion salad dressed with sweet cream and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cucumbers Served with Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumber and onion very thin.

  2. Soak the slices in ice water for one hour.

  3. Drain the slices and arrange them in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Pour sweet cream mixed with cider vinegar to taste over the salad.

  3. Serve with the main part of the meal.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  5. 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

Sweet cream
Forms a rich, creamy dressing that coats the cucumber and onion slices.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the cream dressing.
Cucumber
Provides the cool, crisp, watery body of the salad.

The step that matters

Soak the slices in ice water for one hour. Soaking thin slices in ice water firms them up and crisps them, while drawing out some moisture. Draining well afterward keeps the cream dressing from thinning and becoming watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cream, cider, vinegar. 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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