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Salad

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

A chilled salad of tomatoes and cucumbers dressed with French dressing or mayonnaise.

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 ↓

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes, remove the hearts, and chill them on ice.

  2. Pare the cucumbers, chop them finely, and mix with the tomato hearts.

Make the dressing and assemble

  1. For French dressing, mix salt, oil, and vinegar or lemon juice in a cup.

  2. Beat the mixture with a fork or egg beater until well combined and use immediately.

  3. Add French dressing or mayonnaise to the mixture and fill the tomato cups.

  4. Serve each cup on a crisp lettuce leaf.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy filling for the cups.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor to the filling.
Oil
Adds fat and smooth body to the French dressing.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
French dressing or mayonnaise
Coats the vegetables, adding moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Beat the dressing until well combined. Oil and vinegar separate unless beaten vigorously, so the dressing must be emulsified and used right away to keep it evenly mixed over the vegetables.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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