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Salad

Cucumber Jelly Salad

A chilled cucumber jelly served with mayonnaise dressing on lettuce leaves.

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 ↓

Cucumber Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers.

  2. Stew the cucumbers in just enough water to cover until tender, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Strain and measure the liquid; you should have 1 pint.

Make the jelly

  1. Soften the gelatine in cold water for 15 minutes, then add it to the hot cucumber liquid.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and chill on ice until set.

Serve

  1. Turn out the jelly, cut it into cubes, and serve with mayonnaise dressing on lettuce leaves.

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. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Cucumbers
Give the jelly its main flavour and body once stewed and strained into liquid.
Gelatine
Sets the cucumber liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when cut.

The step that matters

Softening the gelatine before adding it to the hot liquid. Gelatine must be fully softened in cold water so it dissolves evenly into the hot liquid. Clumps left undissolved will leave grainy spots and uneven setting in the finished jelly.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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.

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