Name: Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Ingredients: 6 fresh tomatoes; 2 cucumbers; 1 onion (optional); 1 head of celery; 3 hard-boiled eggs; cayenne pepper (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); vinegar (to taste)

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the tomatoes, cucumbers, onion (if using), celery, and hard-boiled eggs thinly.
Layer the sliced ingredients in a salad bowl.
Add a dash of cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar to taste.

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.

Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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 juice that moistens the salad.
Cucumbers: Add crisp texture and a cool, watery freshness.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, firm texture to the salad.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavors of the vegetables.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, celery, egg, pepper, vinegar):

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, celery, egg, pepper, 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.