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Salad

Oyster and Cucumber Salad

A salad of oysters, cucumber, lettuce, and French dressing with Tabasco and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Oyster and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Pick over, wash, and drain the oysters.

  2. Remove the muscles from each oyster.

  3. Place the oysters in a saucepan with a dash of salt and pepper.

  4. Cover tightly and shake over high heat until plump and gills ruffle.

  5. Drain the oysters and chill.

Make the salad

  1. Pare and dice the cucumber.

  2. Add Tabasco to the French dressing.

  3. Pour the dressing over the oysters and cucumbers.

  4. Add the finely shredded blanched lettuce.

  5. Arrange the mixture on lettuce leaves.

  6. Top each serving with a spoonful of 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.

  1. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + cucumbertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together192 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient, cooked briefly until plump so they firm up while staying tender.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and moisture to the salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, softening the salad's brininess.
French dressing
Adds acidity and sweetness that brighten the oysters and cucumber.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and shake over high heat until plump and gills ruffle. Oysters cook quickly. Heat that is too high or too long makes them tough and shrunken, so they should be removed as soon as they plump and the gills curl.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, cucumber, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, cucumber, sauce. 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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