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Salad

Cucumber and Green Onion Salad

A salad of thinly sliced cucumbers and finely shredded green onions dressed with olive oil, vinegar, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber and Green Onion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the cucumbers as directed for relish and slice them very thin.

  2. Add finely shredded green onions.

Season and serve

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Dress with olive oil and vinegar.

  3. Serve on a salad plate.

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 + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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, providing crisp, cool, watery texture.
Green onions
Add sharp, fresh onion aroma and a crisp bite.
Olive oil
Adds fat and carries flavor across the cucumber slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the salt.

The step that matters

Slicing the cucumbers very thin. Thin slices give even seasoning and dressing coverage, and salt draws moisture out of cucumber. Thick pieces stay bland and can turn watery once salted and dressed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, olive, vinegar. 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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