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Salad

Combination Salad

A chilled salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, celery, onion, and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Combination Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and cucumbers.

  2. Tear the lettuce into fine pieces, using the white, crisp leaves.

  3. Cut the celery into half-inch pieces.

  4. Slice the onion thinly or chop the green onions finely.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the ingredients in a salad dish in layers to show the green, white, and red.

  2. Pour the mayonnaise dressing over the salad.

  3. Serve very cold.

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. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 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
Adds juiciness and a sharp, fresh acidity that brightens the salad.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and cooling moisture to the layers.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base that gives the salad its body.
Celery
Adds crunch and a mild, fresh vegetal flavour.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and pungency that mellows when chilled.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, coating the vegetables with richness.

Swap the onion

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

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

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