Name: Salade
Ingredients: 1 pint stone jar; equal quantities of onions, cucumbers, and sour apples, all cut into very thin slices; 1 teaspoon salt; ¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ⅓ cup soy sauce; ⅓ cup white wine; vinegar to fill the jar

Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salade

Ingredients

1 pint stone jar
equal quantities of onions, cucumbers, and sour apples, all cut into very thin slices
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
⅓ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup white wine
vinegar to fill the jar

Directions

In a pint stone jar, layer equal quantities of thinly sliced onions, cucumbers, and sour apples.
As you layer, sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of salt and ¾ teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Pour in ⅓ cup of soy sauce and ⅓ cup of white wine, then fill the jar with vinegar.
Seal the jar and it will be ready to use the same day.

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.

Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 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).
Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,776 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples: Add tartness and a crisp bite that balances the salt and soy sauce.
Cucumbers: Provide crisp, watery texture and fresh body to the salad.
Onions: Add sharp pungency that mellows as the salad sits in the liquid.
Soy sauce: Adds savory depth and salt-like seasoning to the brine.
Vinegar: Provides acidity that preserves and sharpens the vegetables and apples.

Swap the apple

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Plumfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, pepper, sauce, white wine, 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.