Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: 1 can of shrimps; 2 cucumbers; ½ cup mayonnaise dressing; coarse sea salt to taste; lettuce leaves for serving; slices of cucumber for garnish; slices of tomato for garnish

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 ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the shrimps from the can and wash them thoroughly in cold water.
Drain and wipe the shrimps dry, then break them into two or three pieces.
Peel the cucumbers and cut the solid part into strips, then cut across into small pieces.

Make and serve the salad

Add the cucumber pieces to the shrimps, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and mix with the mayonnaise dressing.
Serve the salad on a bed of lettuce leaves, garnished with slices of cucumber and tomato.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Shrimp + tomatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,689 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together430 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps: Provide the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Cucumbers: Add crisp texture and a cool, watery freshness to the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds richness and moisture, binding the salad together with its fat and emulsion.