Name: Avocado Salad in Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 ripe avocado; ¼ cup mayonnaise; 1 teaspoon mustard; 4 medium tomatoes

Why it works: Avocado and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Avocado Salad in Tomatoes

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mustard
4 medium tomatoes

Directions

Make the filling

Press the avocado through a potato press.
Mix the pressed avocado with mayonnaise and mustard.

Fill the tomatoes

Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes, leaving a shell.
Fill the tomato shells with the avocado mixture.

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

Avocado + tomatotop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,385 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Avocado + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together234 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,482 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

Avocado: Provides the creamy, smooth body of the salad filling.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the avocado filling soft and spreadable.
Mustard: Adds a sharp flavor that balances the richness of the avocado and mayonnaise.
Tomatoes: Serve as edible shells that hold the filling and add fresh acidity.