Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: whole, peeled tomatoes; lettuce leaves; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,655 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

whole, peeled tomatoes
lettuce leaves
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Place whole, peeled tomatoes on a bed of lettuce leaves.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over each tomato.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned 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

Whole, peeled tomatoes: Provide the main body of the salad, with a soft, juicy texture and fresh flavor.
Lettuce leaves: Form a crisp, cool bed that holds the tomatoes and adds a fresh, light texture.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds richness and fat, coating the tomatoes and adding creamy flavor.

“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.