Name: Cucumber Salad
Ingredients: fresh cucumbers; coarse sea salt; black pepper; salad dressing; vinegar; cress; radishes

Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the cucumbers and season with salt and pepper.
Add salad dressing thinned with vinegar.
Mix well and chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
Serve on a bed of cress and garnish with sliced radishes.

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.

Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + radishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together382 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

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