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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber

A chilled salad of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers served on lettuce with optional red peppers and French or mayonnaise dressing.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, then immediately pour it off.

  2. Remove the skins from the tomatoes.

  3. Peel the cucumbers.

  4. Slice the tomatoes and cucumbers alternately.

Assemble and serve

  1. Stack six slices on top of each other.

  2. Arrange on lettuce leaves and garnish with red peppers if desired.

  3. Serve ice cold with French or mayonnaise 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.

  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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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 the main body of the salad, with juice and soft texture once skinned.
Cucumbers
Add cool, crisp texture and fresh moisture alongside the tomatoes.
French dressing or mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and acidity that coats the vegetables and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, then immediately pour it off. A brief scald loosens the tomato skins without cooking the flesh. Leaving the water on too long would soften the tomatoes and begin to cook them, making slices mushy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, pepper. 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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