Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: firm ripe tomatoes; Spanish onion; chopped parsley; coarse sea salt; black pepper; a pinch of castor sugar; olive oil; tarragon vinegar or wine vinegar; salad dressing

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,563 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the firm ripe tomatoes and place them in a salad bowl.
Add thinly cut rings of Spanish onion and sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a pinch of castor sugar.
Dress the salad with olive oil and tarragon vinegar or wine vinegar.
Serve with a bottle of salad dressing on the side.

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.

Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm ripe tomatoes: Form the main body of the salad and supply most of its juice and flavour.
Spanish onion: Adds sharp, pungent bite that contrasts with the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Olive oil: Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries flavour across the tomatoes.
Tarragon vinegar or wine vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the salt and sugar.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, pepper, sugar, olive, tarragon):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Lettucebetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, pepper, sugar, olive, tarragon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.