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Salad

Combination Salad

A salad of chopped celery, radishes, cucumber, green onions, tomato, green pepper, and pecan halves served over lettuce with French or mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Chop and measure all vegetables, keeping pieces about the size of a dime.

  2. Mix all vegetables together with salt in a bowl.

Assemble and serve

  1. Line salad dishes with tender lettuce leaves.

  2. Place the vegetable mixture on the lettuce leaves and top with a few pecan halves.

  3. Serve with French or mayonnaise dressing.

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. Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Radish + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
Tomato
Adds moisture and a light acidity to the mixed vegetables.
Pecan halves
Add a toasty, rich crunch that contrasts with the soft vegetables.

Swap the onion

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

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

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