Name: Cress,-cucumber-and-tomato Salad
Ingredients: Cress; Cucumbers; 3 tablespoons oil; 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice; Peeled tomatoes

Why it works: Cucumber and tomato 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 ↓

Cress,-cucumber-and-tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and arrange

Wash the cress and shake dry; arrange it as a bed on a serving dish, discarding the coarse stems.
Make a smaller bed of cucumbers, cut into slices or dice, and dress with oil and vinegar or lemon juice.
Arrange peeled tomatoes, cut into pieces, on top of the cucumbers.

Serve

Serve with French dressing, cream, or mayonnaise.

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 + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Vinegar + tomatotop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,063 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers: Provide the crisp, cool, watery base that forms the bulk of the salad.
Oil: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and coating the vegetables.
Vinegar or lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Peeled tomatoes: Contribute juiciness, sweetness and a soft texture to the salad.