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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

A salad of tomato and cucumber mixed with mayonnaise, nuts, and served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the stem end of the tomato and scoop out some of the meat.

  2. Chop the scooped tomato meat with the tender cucumber.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture with mayonnaise.

  2. Sprinkle nuts on top and serve on a lettuce leaf.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cucumber + nutstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato
Provides juicy moisture and acidity, and its scooped shell holds the salad.
Tender cucumber
Adds crisp, cool texture and moisture to the chopped mixture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the chopped vegetables together.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich contrast to the soft vegetables.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, 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.

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