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Salad

Cucumber Soup

A chilled cucumber salad dressed with oil, vinegar, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the cucumbers into very thin slices and place them in a salad bowl.

  2. Mix 3 parts salad oil with 1 part vinegar.

  3. Add chopped parsley, salt, and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir well and pour the dressing over the cucumbers.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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
Provide the main bulk and a crisp, cool, watery texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries flavor across the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing well before pouring. Oil and vinegar separate quickly because oil does not mix with water-based liquids. Stirring or whisking temporarily blends them into an emulsion, so the dressing coats the cucumber slices evenly instead of pooling as separate layers.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, parsley, pepper. 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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