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Salad

Spring Salad

A layered salad of watercress, cucumbers, tomatoes, chives, and French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and chive share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 97 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, layer fresh watercress.

  2. Add a layer of thinly sliced cucumbers.

  3. Add a layer of tomatoes topped with chopped chives.

  4. Repeat the layering process.

  5. Create a border of watercress around the bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. When ready to serve, pour on French dressing and toss until well mixed.

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. Watercress + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Watercress + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + chivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Watercress
Provides a crisp, peppery leaf base and a decorative border.
Cucumbers
Adds crisp, cool texture and moisture to the layers.
Tomatoes
Adds juiciness and a mild acidity to the salad.
French dressing
Coats the leaves and layers with oil and acid for flavour and moisture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, cucumber, chive. 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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