Name: Spanish Salad
Ingredients: 1 large Spanish onion; 1 cucumber; 6 firm ripe tomatoes; Salt; Pepper; Olive oil; Vinegar; Parmesan cheese, finely grated; Spanish olives, stoned

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Spanish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and thinly slice the onion.
Thinly slice the cucumber and tomatoes.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, mix the onion, cucumber, and tomatoes.
Season with salt, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.
Sprinkle finely grated Parmesan cheese between each layer.
Garnish with stoned Spanish olives and serve.

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.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 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

Parmesan cheese: Adds a salty, savoury note that contrasts with the acidic vinegar and fresh vegetables.
Tomatoes: Provide moisture and juice that combine with the oil and vinegar into a dressing.
Spanish onion: Adds sharp pungency that mellows as it sits in the vinegar and oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, pepper, olive, vinegar, parmesan cheese):

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, pepper, olive, vinegar, parmesan cheese. 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.