Name: Tomato Dolmasi
Ingredients: ripe tomatoes; cucumber; boiled rice; chopped raw meat; seasoning

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Dolmasi

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Scoop out the center of the tomatoes, leaving a thick shell.
Finely chop the cucumber and mix it with boiled rice and chopped raw meat.
Season the mixture to taste.
Fill the tomatoes with the mixture.
Place the stuffed tomatoes in a dish and bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together734 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Tomato + meattop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,438 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).