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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

A chilled salad of sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, onion, and hard‑boiled eggs, dressed with a simple dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Chill the cucumbers and cool the tomatoes.

  2. Slice the cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, and hard-boiled eggs very thin.

  3. Break the celery into bits.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the sliced ingredients in a salad bowl.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad.

  3. Let stand for 10 minutes in a cold place 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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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 juiciness and fresh acidity that flavours the salad and its dressing.
Cucumbers
Add crisp, watery texture and a cool, refreshing bulk to the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Contribute richness and a soft, firm texture that balances the crisp vegetables.
Celery
Adds a crunchy texture and a mild, fresh savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Let stand for 10 minutes in a cold place before serving. Resting lets the dressing soak into the sliced vegetables and mingle the flavours. Keeping it cold keeps the cucumbers crisp and slows the release of their water, which would otherwise thin the dressing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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