Name: Tomato Salad
Ingredients: 6 large smooth tomatoes; celery, cut in small bits; salad dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Tomato Salad

Ingredients

6 large smooth tomatoes
celery, cut in small bits
salad dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Scald and peel the tomatoes.
Cut them in half and remove part of the pulp.

Fill and serve

Fill the space with celery mixed with salad dressing.
Put the tomato halves together.
Place each tomato in a lettuce leaf.
Pour the remaining salad dressing over the tomatoes.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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: Form the main body of the salad, holding the celery filling.
Celery: Adds a crisp, crunchy texture to the soft tomato filling.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and flavor to the celery filling and the finished salad.