Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: 12 fresh tomatoes; 1 head of broad-leaved lettuce; good mayonnaise dressing

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

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

12 fresh tomatoes
1 head of broad-leaved lettuce
good mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Prepare

Peel and slice the tomatoes.
Refrigerate the sliced tomatoes.

Assemble and serve

Wash the lettuce and arrange the leaves around the sides of a salad bowl.
Place the cold sliced tomatoes in the center.
Pour the dressing over the salad and serve.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Tomatoes: Provide the main body, moisture and fresh flavor of the salad.
Broad-leaved lettuce: Forms a crisp leafy base that holds the tomatoes and dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds richness and fat that coats the tomatoes and lettuce.

“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.