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Salad

A Lunch Dish

A chilled cucumber and onion salad dressed with vinegar, pepper, salt, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Lunch Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice cucumbers and onions very thin.

  2. Layer them alternately in a saucepan.

Make the dressing

  1. In another saucepan, combine vinegar, pepper, and salt; bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers and onions; cook for 1 minute.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat, add thick cream, and transfer to a covered dish.

  2. Set the dish in a pan of hot water for 5 minutes before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 bulk of the salad.
Onions
Add sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and pickles the vegetables.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy coating to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the cream off the heat. Cream can curdle or separate when exposed to high heat or boiling acid. Removing the pan from heat before adding the cream keeps it smooth and rich rather than grainy.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

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