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Salad

Green Pepper Salad Mixed with Cucumbers

A salad of sliced green peppers and cucumbers dressed with vinegar, oil, paprika, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Green Pepper Salad Mixed with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut off the ends of the cucumbers and taste to ensure they are not bitter.

  2. Slice the cucumbers thinly and let them stand for a short while.

  3. Press out the water and salt the cucumbers well, then let them stand for another half hour and press out the juice again.

  4. Slice the green peppers into thin rings, salt them, and let them stand for a while before pressing out the liquid.

Assemble and dress

  1. Place the cucumbers in the center of a salad dish and arrange the peppers around them.

  2. Mix the oil and vinegar, then pour it over the salad.

  3. Sprinkle the cucumbers with paprika and black pepper.

  4. Let the salad stand for at least two hours before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Their watery flesh forms the main body of the salad, and salting and pressing removes bitter, excess liquid.
Green peppers
Thin rings add crisp texture and a fresh, grassy flavor to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Oil
Adds fat that carries the flavor of the vinegar and spices across the vegetables.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water after salting. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and peppers by osmosis. If the liquid is not pressed out thoroughly, the salad becomes diluted and soggy, and the dressing loses its effect.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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