Name: Cheese and Tomato Salad
Ingredients: 1 medium-sized tomato; equal quantities of Roquefort cheese and Neufchatel cheese; French dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Roquefort cheese and cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 21 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

1 medium-sized tomato
equal quantities of Roquefort cheese and Neufchatel cheese
French dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare the tomato

Peel and chill the tomato.
Scoop out a small portion of the pulp.

Make and fill

Mash equal amounts of Roquefort and Neufchatel cheese, then moisten with French dressing.
Fill the cavity of the tomato with the cheese mixture.

Serve

Serve on lettuce leaves drizzled with French 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Roquefort cheese + cheesetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together21 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,896 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Roquefort cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together28 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together614 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

Tomato: Provides the fresh, juicy shell that holds the cheese filling.
Roquefort cheese: Adds a sharp, salty, tangy flavour to the filling.
Neufchatel cheese: Softens the filling and gives it a mild, creamy texture that mellows Roquefort.

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, roquefort cheese, cheese):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Lettucethe original
Mustardabout as good a flavor fit
Potatoabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, roquefort cheese, cheese. 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.