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Salad

Cucumbers Sliced

Thinly sliced cucumbers dressed with salt, cider vinegar, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Sliced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers in cold water until ready to prepare.

  2. Peel the cucumbers and slice them thinly using a slicer or sharp knife.

Salt and drain

  1. Layer the slices in a deep plate, sprinkling salt between each layer, and let them stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Cover with another plate, shake to drain off excess water.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour good cider vinegar over the cucumbers and sprinkle with black pepper.

  2. Serve sliced onions on a separate plate for those who want to add them.

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. Pepper + oniontop 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

Cucumbers
Make up the crisp, watery body of the salad.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out excess water from the cucumber slices, firming them up.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumber slices. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis. If the slices are not covered and shaken well to drain, the leftover liquid dilutes the vinegar and makes the salad watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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