Name: Salads Served with French Dressing
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce; ½ tomato, chopped; 1 cucumber, chopped; 1 green pepper, chopped; French dressing (to taste)

Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber 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 ↓

Salads Served with French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash and dry the lettuce, then tear it into bite-sized pieces.
In a bowl, combine the chopped tomato, cucumber, and green pepper.

Dress and serve

Add the lettuce to the bowl and drizzle with French dressing.
Toss gently to combine and 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.

Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 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

Lettuce: Forms the crisp, leafy base that holds the other vegetables and dressing.
Tomato: Adds juiciness and a mild acidity that brightens the salad.
Cucumber: Contributes cool, watery crunch that lightens the texture.
Green pepper: Adds crisp texture and a slightly bitter, grassy note.
French dressing: Supplies oil, acid and seasoning that coat the leaves and vegetables.