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Salad

Breakfast Salad

A salad of tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, spring onion, vinegar, and oil, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Breakfast Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skin.

  2. Chill the tomatoes in cold water or on ice until cold.

  3. Cut the tomatoes into segments like an orange.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the cucumber and slice it into very thin slices.

  2. Mince the onion.

  3. Sprinkle the vegetables with pepper and salt.

  4. Pour the oil and vinegar over the vegetables.

  5. Shred the lettuce.

Assemble

  1. Place the shredded lettuce on top of the salad 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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy moisture of the salad.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and fresh moisture.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Lettuce
Forms a crisp, leafy base and adds fresh texture on top.

The step that matters

Chill the tomatoes until cold. Scalding loosens the skin, but tomatoes left warm will soften and release juice, making the salad watery and limp. Chilling firms the flesh so the segments hold their shape and stay crisp when dressed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, lettuce, 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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