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Salad

To Dress Cucumbers

A salad of sliced cucumbers dressed with salt, vinegar, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

To Dress Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the cucumbers and soak them in cold water for an hour, preferably ice water.

  2. Slice the cucumbers very thin and sprinkle a little fine salt over each piece.

  3. Let them stand for an hour, then shake the dish briskly and drain closely.

Season and serve

  1. Cover the cucumbers with good sharp vinegar and add a dash of pepper before serving.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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
Make up the bulk of the salad and give it a crisp, juicy texture.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumber slices, concentrating flavor and firming the texture.
Good sharp vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the salad its sharp, bright flavor.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumbers. Salt draws water out of the cucumber slices. If they are not drained closely after standing, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and makes the salad watery.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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