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Cucumber Salad

A salad of sliced cucumbers topped with a sweet cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Drain the cucumbers.

Make the dressing

  1. Whip the cream to stiff peaks.

  2. Add sugar and vinegar to the whipped cream to taste, along with a dash of Tabasco sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the cream mixture over the cucumbers and mix carefully with a fork.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery vegetable base of the salad.
Sweet cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it forms a rich, creamy coating for the cucumbers.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cucumbers, concentrating flavor and firming the slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers. Salted cucumbers release a lot of water. If they are not drained well, that liquid thins the whipped cream and makes the salad watery.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, vinegar, sauce. 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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