Name: Spring Salad
Ingredients: 4 tomatoes; 2 spring onions; 1 green pepper; 5 radishes; 1 cucumber; lettuce leaves; French dressing

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 ↓

Spring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the tomatoes, spring onions, radishes, and cucumber.
Mix the sliced vegetables well and spread them on lettuce leaves.
Sprinkle with finely chopped green pepper and serve with French dressing.

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).
Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Radish + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 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 juicy body and fresh acidity that brightens the salad.
Cucumber: Adds cool, crisp moisture and a light, refreshing texture.
Radishes: Contribute crisp texture and a peppery bite.
Spring onions: Add mild onion flavour and aroma without overpowering the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, radish, cucumber, lettuce):

Broccolifits better
Spinachfits better
Beetrootfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, radish, cucumber, 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.