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Salad

Stuffed Cucumber Salad

A salad of cucumber halves filled with chopped tomato, celery, parsley, onion, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Stuffed Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel the cucumbers and cut them in half lengthwise.

  2. Scrape out the seeds and soak the cucumber halves in iced water for 1-2 hours.

  3. Remove the cucumbers from the water, dry them, and arrange on lettuce leaves.

Make the filling

  1. For each cucumber, prepare a small tomato, a stalk of celery, a sprig of parsley, and a bit of onion.

  2. Peel the tomato, remove the seeds, and chop the pulp finely with the celery, onion, and parsley.

  3. Mix the chopped ingredients with a little mayonnaise.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the cucumbers with the mixture and top with more mayonnaise.

  2. Serve each guest half of a cucumber boat with a leaf of lettuce.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Their firm, watery flesh forms the edible boat that holds the filling.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the chopped vegetables together.
Small tomatoes
Contribute moisture and mild acidity to the chopped filling.

The step that matters

Dry the cucumbers after soaking. Surface water left on the cucumber halves would dilute the mayonnaise and make the filling runny. Drying them well helps the filling hold its shape.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, tomato, celery, parsley. 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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