Name: Macedomes Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart canned tomatoes; 1 tablespoon gelatin; Salt; Pepper; Lettuce leaves; 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 ↓

Macedomes Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the canned tomatoes and strain them.
Season the tomato juice with salt and pepper.
Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling tomato juice.
Add the macedomes to the mixture.
Pour into small molds and refrigerate until set.
Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise 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 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).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Gelatin + lettucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tomato + gelatintop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).