Name: Corn Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups cooked corn, cut from the cob; 1 cup sliced cucumbers; 1 cup string beans; ½ cup finely sliced young onions; ½ cup asparagus tips; ½ cup French dressing; Lettuce leaves for lining the bowl

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Salad

Ingredients

2 cups cooked corn, cut from the cob
1 cup sliced cucumbers
1 cup string beans
½ cup finely sliced young onions
½ cup asparagus tips
½ cup French dressing
Lettuce leaves for lining the bowl

Directions

Prepare the corn

Boil the corn until well done.
Cut the corn from the cob with a sharp knife and allow it to cool.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, mix the cooled corn with sliced cucumbers, string beans, finely sliced onions, and asparagus tips.
Add French dressing and mix thoroughly.
Line a serving bowl with lettuce leaves and transfer the salad into it.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together292 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn: Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the salad.
Cucumbers: Add crisp texture and moisture to the salad.
String beans: Add crisp texture and a fresh, vegetal bite.
French dressing: Adds moisture, acidity and fat that coat the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, cucumber, beans, asparagus, lettuce):

Beetrootfits better
Spinachfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cucumber, beans, asparagus, lettuce. 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.