Name: Sardine Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint sardines in oil; ½ pint mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons minced celery; 6 medium-sized smooth tomatoes; toothpicks

Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,377 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sardine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix sardines with mayonnaise and minced celery.
Scoop out the seeds from the tomatoes.

Assemble

Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with the sardine salad mixture.
Secure the tops of the tomatoes with toothpicks.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines: Provide the main body and rich, savory flavor of the salad filling.
Mayonnaise: Binds the sardines and adds moisture and richness to the filling.
Celery: Adds a crisp, slightly fresh crunch to the soft sardine mixture.
Tomatoes: Act as edible cups for the filling and add juicy acidity.

“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.