Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,075 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: lobster
Directions
In a pot, combine the stock, tomatoes, and garlic clove; cook for 10 minutes.
Strain the mixture and return it to the pot over heat.
Mix the butter and flour together, then stir into the stock.
Add sliced mushrooms and chopped green peppers; cook until the sauce is thick like cream.
Cut the lobster meat into pieces and cook it in the sauce until very hot, or warm it in a little stock before thickening the sauce.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together14,075 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together12,516 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Tomato + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,718 recipes
Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,913 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Garlic + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together4,685 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the garlic
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, mushroom, pepper):
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
- Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
- Garlicthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, mushroom, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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