Name: Sweetbread Salad
Ingredients: cooked sweetbreads, cut small; fine cucumber, chopped; boiled cream dressing or mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves; cold boiled egg or shrimps 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 ↓

Sweetbread Salad

Ingredients

cooked sweetbreads, cut small
fine cucumber, chopped
boiled cream dressing or mayonnaise dressing
lettuce leaves
cold boiled egg or shrimps for garnish

Directions

Make the salad

Combine equal parts of cooked sweetbreads and chopped cucumber in a bowl.
Season with boiled cream dressing or mayonnaise dressing.

Serve

Serve the mixture on a bed of lettuce leaves.
Garnish with cold boiled egg or shrimps.

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 + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,346 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream + lettucetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Cucumber + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together787 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked sweetbreads: Provide the main meaty bulk and soft, tender texture of the salad.
Fine cucumber: Adds cool, crisp moisture that contrasts with the rich sweetbreads.
Boiled cream dressing or mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the mixture and coats each piece.