Name: Cucumber and Green Pea Salad
Ingredients: 1 large cucumber; cold cooked peas; dressing (oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper); slices of beetroot, tomato, or lettuce leaf; mayonnaise sauce or dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 345 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber and Green Pea Salad

Ingredients

1 large cucumber
cold cooked peas
dressing (oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper)
slices of beetroot, tomato, or lettuce leaf
mayonnaise sauce or dressing

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cucumber into thick slices, about 2 inches wide, then hollow out the seeds to form small cups.

Assemble and serve

Pour a little dressing into each cup.
Fill each cup with cold cooked peas, piling them up.
Stand each cup on a slice of beetroot, tomato, or a lettuce leaf.
Serve with mayonnaise sauce or dressing.

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 + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together629 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Peas + beetroottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together250 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber: Forms the edible cups that hold the peas and dressing.
Cold cooked peas: Provide the main filling, adding bulk and a tender texture.
Mayonnaise sauce or dressing: Adds richness and fat, moistening the salad when served.

Swap the peas

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

Chickpeafits better
Lentilsfits better
Beansfits better
Peasthe original

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