Name: Sweetbreads and Tomato Salad
Ingredients: sweetbreads; tomatoes; cooked dressing; lettuce leaves; chicken (optional)

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 ↓

Sweetbreads and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and dice the sweetbreads.
Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and carefully remove the hearts.
Dice the tomato hearts into pieces about the size of the sweetbreads.
Blend the diced sweetbreads and tomatoes with the cooked dressing.
Fill the tomato cups with the mixture.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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 + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,031 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).